The
government has many options available to families trying to come up with
the cash for college. There are programs like the Pell Grants and the
Perkins Loans among many others. But before you start looking into these
loans and grants you first need to fill out the FAFSA form. You can get
this online or from a high school, it does not matter where you get it,
all that matters is that you fill it out and get it in as soon as
possible. This form will help you to find out how much aid the student is
eligible for and how much money the students family will have to kick in
to the college education.
There are some other requirements
that need to be addressed before you can get federal student aid. Some of
these requirements are as follows:
You have to need this aid and be
able to prove that you need it. Not all loans are this way but most of
them are.
You need to be eligible either by
being a citizen of the United States or by having at least a valid Social
Security Number, which some non-citizens still have. Citizens still need a
valid Social Security Number.
You will also have to either, have graduated high
school or have your GED or pass a test that the Department of Education
has for this type of situation. Your high school education can have been
home school, as long as you graduated you are fine for college.
You will also have to be going to
school in order to obtain a goal, just like any other student. This is
usually a degree of some kind.
If you want a loan you cannot have
any outstanding student loans.
If you have been convicted of
possessing or selling illegal drugs then you can kiss your financial aid
goodbye.
And in order to keep receiving ad
you will have to keep your grades up.
Only after the government is
satisfied that you have met all of these terms will they consider granting
you any financial aid. And there is more than one kind of aid. There is
what is called gift aid, which is given and does not need to be paid back
and then there is self help aid. This type of aid will have to be worked
off or paid back in full.
If it is gift aid that you are
looking for then you want to be looking at Pell grants and the Federal
Supplemental Educational Opportunity Grant Program. These are generally
only given out to student who doe not have their bachelors degree yet but
not always is this the case. Sometimes a student may get these when they
are in post-baccalaureate teacher certification programs.
Pell grants are not all for the same
amount of money. Some are only for a few hundred dollars while others are
for thousands. The amount of money that you will get for a Pell grant will
depend upon a few things such as how much money you need, how much your
schooling is going to cost and whether or not you are going to school full
time or not.
The Federal Supplemental Educational
Opportunity Grants people look any many different factors as well and
these too can range in awards from several hundred dollars to thousands.
These grants usually go to students who need it the most. Those whose
families do not have any money to help pay for college are the students
that will be getting these ones. And many of the students who get these
grants will also get Pell grants, in fact they will be at the top of the
Pell list.
Work study programs are another way the government is
willing to help students pay for their college educations. With this
method the student will be working part time, which leaves them with less
money owed to loans. The vast majority of these students will be working on campus
doing any number of different jobs but in some cases the college will set
up a job off campus. These off campus jobs are usually with a non profit
organization of some sort.
If you are taking part in a work
study program you will get at least minimum wage, sometimes more and you
will usually get paid per hour for your hard work. When you get your
financial aid package it will have just how many hours you are allowed to
work for aid and you cannot ask for more, or work extra. Those are all you
get.
Just like most other financial aid
this type of work aid goes on a first come first serve basis so if you are
interested find out if your college has this type of program and apply
quickly because it will go fast. Not only will you actually get he work
aid that you need, you might even get to choose your job.
Perkins loans or rather low interest
rate federal Perkins loans are also very helpful to some. This too goes on
a first come first serve basis and the government only gives so much money
to each school and that is what they have to work with period.
You will have to pay back Perkins
loans, thus the name loan, but you will have plenty of time to do this, 10
years in fact and you don’t have to start paying it back for nine months
after graduation, even if you are only a part time student. The interest
rates on these loans are fixed so you will not have to worry about them
going up over the years.
And if you have a specific teaching
job, or certain other jobs you may even be able to get your loan
discharged completely.
Stafford loans are so popular and
sought after for their low interest rates and their long pay back period.
The interest rates are so much lower than any loan that can be received
from a private lender that everyone wants a Stafford loan. These loans do
however have variable interest rates and they will be adjusted each
year.
Stafford loans come in two different
varieties. First you have your Direct Stafford loans and then you have
your FFEL Stafford loans. Direct ones are made through the William D. Ford
Federal Direct Loan program, which is not the same as the FFEL, which
instead is made through the Federal Family Education Loan program. The
only difference is that in the first the money is coming right from the
government to you. The other comes from a bank, or credit union or any
other lender taking part in this great program.
Not all Stafford loans are subsidized but if they are
it is the government that is paying the interest payments on the loan whi
le the student is still going to
classes every day. The student does not have to start doing this until six
months after their graduation from college. And these ones are only
available to the students who can show a dire need for financial
aid.
Those who cannot do this will get an
unsubsidized Stafford loan. If you are receiving this type of loan then
you need to start paying interest as soon as you get the loan, you do not
have that interest free time buffer.
These loans do not have to be paid
back in full anywhere from 10 to 30 years. Just how long it is gong to
take you to pay off your loans will depend solely on the amount of money
you borrowed to begin with and just how you chose to repay the loan. There
are different repayment options for you to choose from. You may even be
eligible for a deferment or a discharge of the loan.
No longer is it only students who
can get these types of financial aid, now parent can get in on it too.
This is great because it can make college much more sensible for everyone.
Parent can take out the whole cost of their kids education, well, most of
it all they will have to do is minus the amount of financial aid the
student is getting. These loans are called Parent Loan for Undergraduate
Students and they are government sponsored loans. These loans even have an
interest cap on them.
As with everything else the family
and the student will have to meet some requirements to get one of these
loans but these loans make sense for a lot of families. These need to
start getting paid back as soon as 60 days, which can be tough for some
people. But they do not have to be paid back in full for 10 years and
there is no early repayment penalty, which is a wonderful thing to know.
These too like some of the other loans may be eligible for deferment or
discharge.
No one likes to have to borrow
money, no matter what the cause but federal student loans are a good way
to go if you have to because their interest rates are so much lower than
most of the other alternatives out there. Their repayment policies tend to
be a little softer as well, which all newly graduated students need. You
don’t want to be using private lenders, as they are so much more costly,
until you have first looked into federal grants and
loans.
