Education is a good investment, and assuming some debt to earn a bachelor’s or advanced degree tends to pay off for most. For example, a student who took out the maximum direct student loan each year for four years would pay a little over $300 per month for 10 years to fully repay their loans. The average salary for a recent college graduate is over $51,000, and the Bureau of Labor Statistics shows median weekly earnings for bachelor’s degree holders being $461 higher than the median for those with Continue reading Where do Massive Student Loan Balances Come From?
College Prep by Grade
I gave a financial aid talk to college and career center volunteers at our high school recently. One question stood out: “This is a lot of information to absorb at once. Can you break it down into some specific suggestions by grade?” Two ideas are important here: College planning is a process that should start well before senior year, and there are things that can be done at any point to make things go more smoothly when the time comes to start applying. So here goes. Continue reading College Prep by Grade
Estimating Post-Graduation Loan Burden
For many teenagers, it’s difficult to understand the true burden of student loans. For someone whose primary source of income has been mowing lawns, the average college graduate starting salary of over $51,000 often seems a little bit like winning the lottery. Unfortunately, it also leaves many feeling like student debt will be no problem. Variations on the theme of, if I’m making $50,000 a year, it won’t take any time to pay off $50,000 in student loans, abound. However, the facts are somewhat different: all-in, Continue reading Estimating Post-Graduation Loan Burden
Pell Grants
Pell Grants are one of the largest federal gift aid programs, with over $28 billion going to students with high financial need in the 2017-2018 school year. While that is certainly a lot of money, the program is in fact fairly limited. Continue reading Pell Grants
Why File the FAFSA?
Every year, a large percentage of the eligible population fails to file a FAFSA: the Department of Education estimates 40% of high school seniors do not file it and 25% of college students do not renew their FAFSA. And yet, there are plenty of compelling reasons to do so. The obvious one is access to financial aid. Here are some other reasons: Continue reading Why File the FAFSA?
Early Admission/Early Decision
More and more schools report filling substantial portions of their freshman classes through early decision or early action, and it’s not uncommon to hear of higher acceptance rates of early decision/early admission candidates than regular decision. But does that mean you should do it? Maybe, maybe not. Continue reading Early Admission/Early Decision
Honors Colleges, Dual Enrollment and Majors
Apologies for my recent absentee-ism. Between our (hopefully) last college visit and my nephew’s wedding, it’s been a busy couple of weeks here!
Our hopefully last college visit was with both kids at our in-state flagship school. My son loved it; it’s where he was already intending to go and the visit really confirmed that, as well as increasing his excitement about being there next fall. Looking at it from his perspective, the visit increased my happiness about the circus-free nature of attending Continue reading Honors Colleges, Dual Enrollment and Majors
Special Circumstances
Special circumstances refers to anything in the applicant’s financial situation that is not reflected on the FAFSA or CSS Profile. The Profile has an actual space for applicants to detail special circumstances. For FAFSA schools, applicants may have to appeal their aid award and go through the Professional Judgment (PJ) process. If this might apply to you, you should understand the decision-making criteria and process so that special circumstances you’re detailing are in fact special circumstances in the financial aid world. Continue reading Special Circumstances
PSAT
Taking a break from the FAFSA… The PSAT is coming this week. I highly recommend that all sophomores and juniors take it. Why? Because standardized tests are quite possibly the best source of merit aid around, so the more practice you get, the more prepared you are likely to be when the real tests come around. Continue reading PSAT
FAFSA for Divorced Parents
This is a big topic so for today I’m going to focus on general rules. Keep in mind the FAFSA rules are different from the CSS Profile rules; below is FAFSA only.
The custodial parent for the FAFSA can be different than the custodial parent in the divorce decree and/or different from who claims the student as a dependent on their tax return. The FAFSA defines the custodial parent as “The parent that you lived with most Continue reading FAFSA for Divorced Parents
