As with learning anything, “you have to start somewhere” and college financial aid is no different. If you are a student or parent of a student gearing up for college (or even a student currently in college), you are going to need to learn the facts about college financial aid! With so much information floating around in the “financial aid” sea, learning the proper steps to funding a college education can be overwhelming. StudentLoansForCollege.org wanted to help simplify the learning processes by giving you a basic “College Financial Aid Flow Chart”. Now this is by no means all there is to know (or all your going to need to know), but it gives you the general overview of how you should approach funding a college education.
The College Financial Aid flow Chart
As you can see by the chart, you first need to seek out ALL the free money for college you can find. This comes in the form of scholarships, grants, and other loan alternatives. The more free money for college sources you can find, the less you have to borrow in student loans. This takes some work, but it’s well worth it!
Next, you need to file the FAFSA or the Free Application for Federal Student Aid. This is your “gateway” to federal financial aid and federal student loans. Even if you think that you will not qualify for federal financial aid, you still should file. Most students will qualify for some form of federal financial aid.
Lastly, your very last resort should be private student loans. If you can not cover your college expenses by the methods above (combined with part-time or full-time employment) then you may wish to seek out a private student loan. Since private student loans can not offer as good of rates or repayment terms (compared to federal student loans) they should always be sought as a last resort.
Now that you have a basic understanding of how to approach funding a college education, start learning more detailed information by utilizing the resources on StudentLoansForCollege.org. We have chosen a few of our most popular sections to start you off:
How Student Loans Work: Student Loans for College 101
5 Student Loan Tips for Students and Parents
4 Easy Student Loan Tips for Beginners
Tags: applying student loans college, FAFSA, federal student loans, parents, Private student loans, student loans
Now What? Share this Student Loan Information or Comment!
| Share |
