It’s shortly after the new year, when a lot of people have their college applications in. That stress is finally gone, and now I have a pile of financial aid stuff to do. I’ll be honest, my family isn’t exactly wealthy, and while I have a small savings account to help pay for college, if I want to go to my school of choice, I’m going to be relying pretty heavily on scholarships and loans. I’m hoping to maximize the former and minimize the latter. So it’s time to get busy.
Where I’m at so far:
Finished with the FAFSA- the Free Application for Student Aid. Like the name says, it’s completely free, and it helps to find you free money and loans. You can start submitting them on January 1st of each year, using last year’s tax returns (they need a lot of information from those). You can also start working on it ahead of time (like December), you just can’t hit that ‘Submit’ button until Jan. 1st. They say that the sooner you get it in, the better, because the free money goes first. And I want free money. Later, we’ll have to go back and update with this year’s (current) tax returns.
Almost done with the CSS/Financial Aid PROFILE- Two of the schools I’ve applied to require this for need-based aid. It’s a lot like the FAFSA. Except they require even more information. I live with my mother and stepfather, and while the FAFSA only required the basics about my dad (address, phone, etc.), this has a completely separate form for noncustodial parents, so he needs his tax returns also. This thing is fully customizable, with different forms depending on your situation. This one can’t be edited once it’s submitted, unlike the FAFSA, so we’ll have to wait until this year’s returns come back to complete it.
Merit based scholarships with the college- some schools you apply to will automatically consider every applicant for merit-based scholarships. This is good, because it means less work for you. Not all are like this though, I would check with each and every school’s individual web page. I’m working on an application for UNCG, and it’s basically an add on to my original application, with an essay, list of favorite books, etc.
Other scholarships can be found through the school, guidance counselor, a local website. I’m lucky to have a great guidance department who keeps all this information organized for me in the office and on the web. You just have to keep an eye out for any sort of scholarship or award that you could qualify for. $200 doesn’t sound like much, but add it to the $500 from that other thing, and the $350 from something else, and this little bit and that little bit and you can come up with a pretty big chunk of change.
And I guess that’s it. Paying for college is about as fun as it sounds. But so far, it’s survivable.
[...] tons of effort in a national competition against tens of thousands of other applicants. At Breaking the Plate, there’s a good article on how to approach financial aid in a practical way. $100 here and [...]
[...] 2008 by scoobnut After painstakingly filling out th FAFSA for the first time (as I mentioned in this article, we had to update it later), my family and I moved on to the CSS/Financial Aid Profile on the [...]