What’s the worst possible thing families could hear after getting their Estimate Family Contribution (EFC) for financial aid? How about that even if they could manage to pay their EFC, more than likely they’ll have to pay even more because most colleges won’t meet their full need. The data on who gets financial aid shows that most families aren’t going to have their need met.
Financial Aid
3 Hard Truths About Who Gets Financial Aid
50-50 Highlights: Average College Endowment per Student
Why look at a college’s endowment when trying to decide where to go to school? This falls into the category of all other things being equal, why not attend an institution that is in a better financial situation? Or more importantly, why risk going to a university that is facing financial difficulties?
50-50 Highlights: 89 Best Bets for Affordable Public Universities
Let me start by saying you never know how much a college is actually going to cost until you get the college’s financial aid award. That’s when you really know if a college is affordable. But there are indicators that some colleges are more likely to be affordable than others. Knowing these indicators mean that you can make sure you apply to colleges more likely to meet your financial needs. That doesn’t guarantee they will because we are talking averages here. But it does improve your chances.
7 Things You Need to Know When Looking for College Scholarships 2
With all of the college scholarship search websites available, it would seem that getting a scholarship to pay for school has never been easier. Unigo’s scholarship match offers to match students to 3.6 million college scholarships worth over $14 billion. And Scholarships.com tells you that there are over 3.7 million scholarships worth $19 billion just waiting for you. How hard can it be to get a scholarship?
Actually, the truth is that the internet has made it easy to find out about numerous college scholarships students might qualify for. The student still has to apply for the scholarship and is competing with all of the other students who used the same search websites to find the scholarship.
How to Find Colleges that Give Tuition Coupons
What, you say you’ve never seen a tuition coupon? Just because nobody has ever actually held one in her hands doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist. You know how you start getting coupons for movers and home stores when you change your address? Or after you visit a website online, you start getting discount offers from them in your Facebook feed? Well, it’s possible to get a coupon for $10,000 or $15,000 off your college tuition if you pick the right college.
50-50 Highlights: Best Financial Bets for Public Universities
A few years ago I did a post on Best Financial Bets for 50-50 Public Universities. The idea is to create a list of public schools that accept at least 50% of students and have at least a 50% graduation rate and are likely to be affordable through either merit or need-based financial aid. I’ve decide to update the list using simpler criteria which increased the number of colleges on the list. Ultimately, I ended up with 66 50-50 public colleges as best financial bets. If you aren’t interested in the gory details of how I came up with the list, just skip to the end to see the entire list.
50-50 Highlights: Public Universities with Highest Percentage of PLUS Loans by State
With all the talk about student debt, it’s easy to miss the PLUS loan numbers. PLUS loans are federal loans taken out by parents on the student’s behalf. The really scary thing about PLUS loans is that parents can borrow up to the full amount of tuition. Furthermore, eligibility for PLUS loans isn’t based on ability to repay the loan but rather your credit history. Just think about it, even with a great credit history, a bank won’t loan you money for $250,000 house without some evidence that you can make the payments. The government will.
130 Best Colleges for Work-Study
One reason why students should complete the FAFSA even if they don’t think they’ll qualify for financial aid is because of the possibility of college work-study jobs. Work-study jobs require completion of the FAFSA and even if your EFC keeps you from receiving any federal grants, you could land a nice work-study job depending on which college you go to.