The FAFSA itself will be available on October 1. In the meantime, the Department of Education has released the EFC Formula Guide for this year’s FAFSA in case you’d like to take the data out for a spin before filing. Before you do that, a few safety reminders: The FAFSA is not the tooth fairy. The only thing the FAFSA…
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How do you begin the process of finding college scholarships? Step 1 is finding out what type of scholarship you’re eligible for: need-based or merit. Need-based financial aid is aid that meets the difference between Cost of Attendance (COA) at a college and your Expected Family Contribution (EFC) (which is being renamed to Student Aid Index or SAI). Your EFC…
April is Financial Literacy Month, so I’m writing about some general financial literacy topics. Today’s topic: Pre-Tax and Roth retirement savings and how to decide which to use. Saving can be hard. Not just because you have to come up with money to save, but because once you do, you have a bewildering range of choices. So many that a…
Scholarships and grants are free money. Does it matter which kind of free money you get, as long as you get some? As a matter of fact, it does. Just to refresh: colleges offer two primary types of financial aid, need-based and merit-based. Need-based aid is allocated on the basis of the FAFSA or CSS Profile and reduces or even…
Outside scholarships can be a great way to stretch your college budget. They can also be an exercise in frustration with countless applications yielding small dollars. Knowing the 5Ws and H of outside scholarships can make your search more rewarding. Let’s start with What is an outside scholarship. An outside scholarship is a scholarship offered by anyone other than the…