Can you ask a college for more scholarship money? Most often, the answer is “Yes, it never hurts to ask.” When it comes to asking for more scholarship money, there seem to be three different types of colleges: Colleges that do not accept requests for more financial aid Colleges that Read more…
Have you heard about front-loaded financial aid? This is where a college attracts your student by offering a great financial aid package for the first year and then drops aid off for subsequent years. Is this something you need to be concerned about? If you can’t afford to pay full Read more…
Can you negotiate college cost? Yes, and you should. Most schools have some wiggle room with their merit and need-based offers. While the college choice process isn’t really like buying a car, there are some similarities. You can start the process once the school sends you a summary of your Read more…
When I am talking about “out-of pocket” college cost, I mean what needs to be paid out over and above what the parents and child have already saved for college. The best way to minimize this cost is to minimize the gap between how much the college will cost you Read more…
I recently filed the CSS Profile for a couple of highly competitive top-dollar universities on my daughter’s college application list. According to the Net Price Calculators at these schools, we would probably qualify for some institutional grant aid, even though we didn’t qualify for federal financial aid. The CSS Profile Read more…
Before you can determine this, you need to know when the financial aid deadlines are for the schools to which you are sending a Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA). You need to go with the earliest financial aid deadline because the FAFSA is distributed at the same time to Read more…
When you are looking at private colleges, there are two types of financial assistance that may be offered – merit aid and need-based aid. The beauty of merit aid is that it has nothing to do with how much a college thinks you can afford or your actual ability to Read more…