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Financial Aid Today

© Shauna Zamarripa

Financial Aid

In my opinion, Financial Aid today is like your favorite sweater, it can never be too big, and it never goes out of style. The truth is that upon seeing the rising costs of financing higher education today makes most parents and students alike, grimace in horror. What can they do? Well, there are grants, scholarships, work-study programs, fellowships, etc. There are many different and helpful resources just aching to give money to worthy students, but many of these generous associations are difficult to find. And, as anyone will tell you, one can't apply for something they can't find.

So, I felt a need to let you in on a secret. There are a great many ways to go about searching for the aid that fits your needs, and the best one I have found so far is the internet. There are more resources and links than you can count; you can find aid for almost anything and for anyone. Before we go to the links, though, let's discuss how financial aid is beneficial and try to figure out which best suits your personal needs.

First and foremost are grants (my personal favorite). A grant is a sum of money, which the student receives for a period of six months to one year, dependant upon the foundation that supplies it. The student will receive this money to offset tuition costs, books, housing, and miscellaneous needs, for the field of study that student pursues. The money will either be allotted in a lump sum payment at the beginning of the school year, or it can be given to the student on a weekly, biweekly, or monthly basis. Here's the best part though, grants, no matter how much one is awarded or when one receives them, never have to be paid back. It's a gift, one given so that the student can pursue their dreams, and reach their goals.

Most grants you will find are based solely on gross income received. What that means is whatever take home pay the student or the parent (whomever is responsible for tuition) receives before taxes is what the grant office looks at when considering a student's application. The headache, however, comes mostly from the paperwork involved in the application process. Most institutions require that a student files his or her income tax return, a copy of the W-2 received for the previous year (January to January), schools attended, schools that the student is planning to attend, and any information they can think of pertinent to the application for the grant. So instead of running around making tens of thousands of copies of all of the aforementioned documents, I would like to make a suggestion. One of the best ways I have found to apply for a grant is to first apply for them federally. This is one of the easiest ways to start gauging how much money you will be eligible to receive, and it's one of the easier applications. The FASFA (Free Application for Federal Student Aid) can be picked up at almost any learning institution and needs only to be filed once per year. Upon completion of this application, you are entered in the running for any and all federal grants. There's only one application to fill out and one place to send it. Now, the FASFA can even be submitted over the Internet, via e-mail, or snail mail, whatever is best for you.