How does one get good financial aid?
Ok. I hate my job, and i want to go to school full-time. I can save money from my job to pay for my bills for a year and have a place to stay. I'm going to be 25 soon and once I get my job how much would financial aid pay for me? thats including grants ect. if i get loans how much would they pay and how much would i have to pay back a month? Can anyone help? thank you
Public Comments
- An excellent place to start is with the FAFSA, because this is how you will be getting federal aid (including grants and loans) through your school. The next place you need to be looking is your school's financial aid office. They should be able to point you in the direction of obtaining need-based, merit-based, or minority grants or scholarships. I would steer away from websites that offer scholarship advice. The only one with any repute is fastweb.com, which will send you several scholarships according to criteria you put in, and interests. If you do not feel that you qualify for scholarship or grants, you can then try to receive the rest of your costs via private loans. Your financial aid office should send you a financial aid agreement offering you federal money, then explaning the rest that you need to make up, including money you will get for room and board, books and such. You need to look at this very carefully to see if you need to borrow less than the maximum amount. Then, go about looking into private loans through your school. The school may have a preferred lender, such as TheAccessGroup or Student Loan Corporation. That is the way I usually handle my aid. For more general information, you can look at the You Can Deal With It website. As far as monthly payments, whenever you receive your loans, you can call the company to determine the payment schedule. your school's financial aid office also should offer entrance AND exit counseling that is MANDATORY to receive financial aid. Therefore, you will know exactly how your loans will operate, and how repayment or deferment is handled.
