Student Loans & Pell Grants

Breathe easy, they won't do any credit checks. The first thing to do is have your child file a FAFSA - website: www.fafsa.ed.gov so that your child can get in the system for financial aid. For an estimate of the pell grant your child will get go to www.finaid.org and use the financial aid calculator found there. In my experience, the school will offer guaranteed loans for the tuition due after subtracting the pell and the estimated family contribution (which you will find out if you use the calculator I mentioned).

Visits to those sites should answer most of your questions! HTH

 

It's been awhile since I was in college, but I do remember the income limits were stingy for pell grants.

If I remember correctly, there are also state grants.....CAL grants.

Eligibility for grants can be determined based on grades and/or incomes.

You can call your kid's high school counselor (guidance or college) and have them explain grants and stafford loans. They would probably be more than happy to give the details. They should also have the financial packets available for you to fill out.

Luckymom is right about getting that FAFSA form filled out. If your kid is starting college next fall, don't delay in getting the necessry financial forms filled out. They have a cutoff date.

 

Contact the financial aid office of the college your child is considering attending. This is their job-trying to find money for students. They should be able to answer your questions and prehaps have some other options available.

 

They take many things into calculating the pell grants. If you enter your info into that calculator link it will give you some general guidelines and you will be able to see *how* it was computed at the end. It will tell you the countable amount, exempt amount, etc.

I believe the maximum pell grant (2002-03 year) was $4000 a year. I may be wrong because it may be higher depending on the cost of the school, but it was $4000 at the community college in my area.

There are other grants, individual to state/school, which the financial aid officer will be able to tell you about. That information may also be posted on the school's website. Worth looking for it to be prepared to ask: "is my child eligible for the XYZ grant this semester?"

I feel the need to re-iterate the need to fill out that FAFSA immediately. Grant money is on a first come, first serve basis and the processing time for FAFSA takes at least 6 weeks in most cases. You can always go back and amend it if something changes, but do get your child in the system asap - its free, its online, and it takes less than an hour to fill out.

HTH

 

The lack of savings may actually be a positive in this situation because you will have fewer countable assets.

Here is an example assuming that your child is your only child in college, and is under 23 with no children, income, or assets of her own...you would have an exempt income amount of $20,710 PLUS whatever you paid in Federal, FICA, and State taxes. The rest of your income is considered "available" (lol) then they add your assets and any asset value (for homes they count the net home equity) over $42,200 is counted also.

They will use this data to come up with the EFC and the financial need. This school should also have scholarships and the like, and to be honest, student loans are not that bad, and they teach responsibility too.

 

You might consider that the grants and student loans won't pay everything. For my daughters going to a major state school, they pay half. The school/government offered to lend me the other half as a PLUS loan. For that loan, the do check credit - no question about it. For me it was an EQ check.

They're actually quite liberal, but you can't have outstanding collections.

There are people on this site that may be able to help you:

http://groups.google.com/groups?hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&group=soc.college.financial-aid

It's all VERY expensive. I wish you well.

 

if at all possible--try for the grants and scholarships first (the school's counselor's office can direct you in the right direction) then go for the subsidized stafford loans(where the government pays the interest on the loans while the children are in school, or out of school deferrment) , then the unsubsidized stafford loans, (where the student is responsible for all the interest accrued, even when students are in their in-school deferrment), also try for a perkins loan (its a state student loan,with a fixed interest rate of 5%) lastly go for the parent plus loans (where they run the parents c.r.) these have the higher interest rates and the parents are responsible for these loans until they are paid off. (they show up on the parents credit report)

**Hope this helps out

 

Re: Re: Student Loans & Pell Grants

I'd guess that (based on your info, and I at one time worked in Financial Aid office at a University) your child won't qualify for much in the way of Fed Grants. Depending on what state you live in, you may or may not qualify for much in the way of state grants (although, I'd guess that you'd get more from the state grants). Although, if your daughter is looking at an out-of-state school, this will hurt her chances of getting state grants (at least that is how it works in many states). Plus, of course, tuition is ussually higher for out of staters.

Stafford loans would be what you would also want to look at. However, again, you may have trouble getting a lot in the way of subsidized loans (which are better than the unsubsidized kind).