• How much of the award is in grants versus loans?
• What is the ratio of grant aid to self-help aid?  Grant aid is aid that you do not have to repay.  Self-help aid would include loans, your expected family contribution from your own assets, and work-study.
• What are the terms of the loans in the package?  Are they subsidized (i.e. the government picks up interest payments until after you graduate)?  Unsubsidized? From private lending sources that are still to be determined by you?
• Has all your need been met or is there a gap?  If you have been “gapped,” how big is the unmet need?
• If your child has received a scholarship, is it just for one year, or is it renewable each year?

Like it or not, colleges will use their limited financial aid resources as a tool to entice those students that they want the most to enroll.  So, more “desirable” students will receive more favorable aid packages than other admitted students.  The “most wanted” students may have their full need met while others are gapped.  They also may have a better ratio of grants to loans to work-study with a much greater percentage of non-repayable grants in the mix than other students receiving aid.  That means that aid packages will vary tremendously from student to student just as they will from school to school.
One other important thing to know is that once any federal money is awarded in an aid package, the student cannot receive any more money beyond the calculated need.  So, for example, if your child receives outside scholarship money, and full need has been met by a financial aid award from a school, the amount of that outside scholarship will be deducted from the school’s original aid package.  The student is only allowed to receive enough aid to meet their calculated need irrespective of the sources of that aid.
Understanding what each financial aid award is offering can be a challenge, but it’s important to look closely and compare and contrast so that you can make the best possible decision when it comes to school choice and financing your child’s future.
Andrea Aronson
College Admissions Counselor
Westfield, NJ
 

The post Financial Aid Primer: #9. All Financial Aid Packages Are Not the Same first appeared on College Admission Counseling.

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• Adjusted gross income
• Income tax paid
• Exemptions
• Yearly earnings
• Money in Cash, Savings, Checking
• Value of investments
• Pension, IRA, etc. payments and deductions
• Child support paid or received

Although all of this data and more is requested, the formula that the FAFSA uses to calculate your EFC weighs earnings most heavily.  Why?  While the federal government wants you to sacrifice and pay your fair share to send your child to college, it doesn’t want you to go broke!  By weighing your recent income more heavily than your savings, investments or pension dollars, the government feels it is leaving you with a cushion for your future.
While some people may be tempted to manipulate their income so that the two years of information that they put into the FAFSA shows a much lower earning level than their true average earnings, be mindful that this kind of tactic often serves to little advantage. This move may provide a family with a lower EFC (Expected Family Contribution) for federal funds (money from the government), but it will generally not have much effect when applying for institutional funds (money allocated by the school) .  That is because institutional awards are often based on CSS PROFILE information, which is far more detailed and uses a different methodology.
Also, remember that federal grant aid is reserved for the most needy.  That means that even though the earnings that you note on the FAFSA may be low, if your other financial data does not show you to be particularly needy, your EFC may still turn out to be quite high (and thus your financial need low) making the machinations required to change your income level not worth the effort.
In the EFC calculation, student assets and earnings overall are weighted more heavily than those of the parents.  This fits with the idea that it is the student who is most directly benefiting from the college education, so it is the student who should provide the greatest relative contribution to fund it.
For more information about what information you’ll need to complete the FAFSA, visit www.fafsa.ed.gov to download a PDF of the FAFSA or get a list from the website’s Help section.
Andrea Aronson
College Admissions Consultant, Westfield, NJ

The post Financial Aid Primer: #7. Information Required For The FAFSA first appeared on College Admission Counseling.

The FAFSA

What will the FAFSA process look like? Remember that the FAFSA process determines your eligibility for federal financial aid, and in some cases institutional aid, too.

1. Gather Financial Aid Information About Schools of Interest:

No, later than the fall of your child’s senior year in high school, determine what the deadlines and relevant forms are for the schools to which your child will be applying. Some schools will require only the FAFSA, while others will also have you fill out PROFILE.  Still others will use their own proprietary forms in addition to the FAFSA. Financial aid application requirements can generally be found on schools’ websites. Be sure to check each school individually for its requirements.

2. Apply for a FAFSA PIN:

A PIN is required before you can submit the FAFSA. You can get this PIN by going to www.pin.ed.gov.

3. Fill Out and Submit the FAFSA:

This can be done either on-line or as a hard copy. To fill one out on-line go to: www.fafsa.gov. The FAFSA becomes available in January of your child’s senior year. Fill it out as soon as you possibly can and well in advance of schools’ deadlines.

In addition to some other basic information, the FAFSA will require you to supply the two most recent years of tax information. Since you will be filling it out in January (hopefully), this means that you will have to project your tax filing for the most recently concluded year.

If you visit www.fafsa4caster.ed.gov, you will be able to get an early estimate of your Expected Family Contribution based on the information that you will input into the FAFSA form. Note that this tool will not tell you with certainty what your EFC will be, but it can give you a good ballpark number.

4. Receive Your SAR:

Several days after you submit your FAFSA (if you are filing on-line), you will receive your Student Aid Report (SAR). In the SAR will be the government’s determination of your Expected Family Contribution (EFC). This is a very important number since it will determine your need and eligibility for aid.

CSS PROFILE

What will the PROFILE process look like? The PROFILE establishes whether a student qualifies for additional aid from a college itself that is above and beyond what the federal government will provide. The form is available on-line from The College Board. PROFILE asks for similar types of information as the FAFSA, however, in far greater detail. Schools that use PROFILE will calculate a new, and most likely different, EFC than what the federal government has calculated on the FAFSA. They will then use this new EFC to award their institutional aid. To submit a PROFILE, you can visit profileonline.collegeboard.com.

1. Establish if Schools of Interest Require the PROFILE and What Deadlines Are:

The PROFILE is used by only 10% of all colleges in the U.S., so investigate whether any of your child’s schools use this form.

2. Do the PROFILE Pre-Application Worksheet:

Because of the more complex nature of the PROFILE, The College Board provides you with a worksheet that can be printed from their website which enables you to gather and put down on paper all of your information prior to your attempting to put it into the actual PROFILE form.

3. Fill Out and Submit the PROFILE:

The PROFILE form generally becomes available in October of your child’s senior year. Note that this is several months earlier than the FAFSA. To submit a PROFILE, you can visit www.profileonline.collegeboard.com.

4. Receive Your PROFILE Acknowledgement:

Immediately after you have submitted your form, you will receive an acknowledgement which contains a list of the schools that will be getting the information as well as a summary of the information that you input into the form.

Be Aware!!! Schools deplete their financial aid over time!

• Be Precise: Fill out your financial aid forms as correctly as possible! Carefully review your SAR and your PROFILE acknowledgement for errors. Mistakes in your forms can delay the process significantly and make you lose out on financial aid dollars.

• Be Quick: Complete your financial aid forms as early as you can. Students who apply immediately have a better chance of getting aid.

Andrea Aronson
College Admissions Advisor, Westfield, NJ

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