If your financial aid award includes work-study, you should understand what it is. Work study falls under the self-help column of financial aid, meaning it’s not free money. The work-study portion of your aid package is your earnings from a qualifying on- or off-campus job. You get work-study funds by finding a job and working during the school year. Work-study…
About 3/4 of financial aid appeals result in the student receiving additional aid, according to Sallie Mae’s How America Pays for College. And yet, less than half of families appeal their aid award. There’s no harm in appealing: any college that has admitted your student wants them to attend, and asking for more money won’t change that. Your odds of success…
Good news: the Department of Education is now processing FAFSAs. Bad news: about 20% of them are being processed with incorrect tax or other data. The majority of affected FAFSAs seem to include one of the following: There may be others. Here’s the thing: the Department of Education only intends to update FAFSA data if doing so would result in…
The average 529 account balance is $27,741, according to the College Savings Plans Network– about the cost of a year of in-state public college. If that’s the case, why did Congress bother creating a rule that allows excess 529 funds to be rolled tax- and penalty-free to Roth IRAs? Here’s another statistic: Less than half of families who save for…
Last week the Department of Education announced that it has begun transmitting FAFSA data to colleges, and will begin ramping up the volume of FAFSA data transmissions to colleges. That means it’s time to prepare to interpret financial aid award letters. For most families, how much schools cost is part of the decision making process. But comparing award letters from…