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Financial Aid

FinAid! The Smart Student Guide to Financial Aid

FinAid is a comprehensive source for those with questions about financial aid. Sponsored by the National Association of Student Financial Aid Administrators, this Web site has the answers to almost any topic on assistance.

Information in the site is grouped into easily understandable topics and sub-topics. Unlike many other sites that are linked together in an unwieldy fashion, virtually all information at this site is no more than two clicks away from the main page. If you get lost, a site map call be accessed from the bottom of each page. Every screen contains a complete description about the sub-topic it explains. Each topic, no matter how complex, is displayed in clear and concise language, with graphics kept to a minimum for speedy loading.

Maximizing Your Aid Eligibility is one of the site's outstanding features. It explains which assets are used to calculate aid eligibility, and how to develop a plan that will enable you to get the most aid possible. One suggestion is to pay off credit card debt from your savings account, because credit cards are not considered to be a liability. However savings is regarded as an asset, so using it for debt reduces your holdings. Another tip is to have grand-parents make gifts for higher education after the student graduates. That way, the gift can be used to pay off loans early. Otherwise, this money can be counted as an additional asset, limiting the amount of financial aid for which the student is eligible. This page also warns against certain illegal strategies that could jeopardize your ability to receive any financial assistance.

The Loans section provides details about most types of loans, and how they can be consolidated or forgiven. If you're thinking about not paying off your loans, read the Defaulting on Student Loans section, as well as the additional costs involved which displays consequences, if the loan is handed over to a collection agency. It warns that "collection costs of at least 40 percent (of the value of your loan) can legally be added to your loans balance," as well as a reminder that "this may not see in fair, but you should have thought of that before defaulting on the loan."

The Other Types of Aid section provides information about aid, grants, and scholarships designed specifically for people with special backgrounds and interests. The Calculators page compares various types of loans, and determines how much debt will incur based on average starting salaries. You can also determine how much should be saved for college, based on the number of years until school and the annual cost of attending the school of choice.

There's a bevy of online services to help you click your way through financial aid process.

Financial aid administrators have their own section, with tips about how to detect a fraudulent application and the best ways to deal with irate students and parents. For that interoffice e-mail, there is even a long list of jokes on the difficulties of working in a financial aid office, reminding all of us that the only thing worse than filling out one application is processing 10,000 of them.

US Department of Education

If you plan to apply for government loans, visit the Department of Education's page. This site provides information about eligibility requirements for all government loan programs, and advice on ways to have federal student loans reduced, deferred, or forgiven. If you've defaulted on your loans, you can learn what your repayment options are, how to have loan eligibility reinstated, and what circumstances allow you to have your loans partially or fully discharged. Also included are links to the sites of many schools that participate in federal loan programs. You can also fill out the Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA) online.

Starting Points for Students and Parents

Applicants for non-federal financial aid should also visit the College Board's Starting Points for Students and Parents. The College Board is best known for administering the SAT and other standardized tests, but it also maintains the Profile Service, which is used by many colleges and scholarships to determine financial aid eligibility. Visitors to this site can have their Profile forms sent via snail mail, or can fill them out online using a secure connection. The site also includes non-financial aid information such as a scholarship search engine, which largely duplicates the specialized search engines mentioned elsewhere in this article, and online SAT registration.

Nellie Mae

Nellie Mae, a leading college loan provider, offers a very useful Web site. The best feature is the selection of student loan calculators that allow users to compare the total costs of various types of student loans, You can find information on financial aid for up to three schools at a time, and compare which offer is the best. This site also allows users to apply for a loan online. One annoyance of this site, however, is its frame-intensive design. It limits the amount of text visible, and makes it almost impossible to tell whether the financial aid calculator is finished computing.

SRN Express

There are several sites dedicated primarily to helping students locate scholarships and grants. One of the best is the Scholarship Resource Network. Users of SRN fill out very detailed questionnaires that provide information about their grades, intended major, hobbies, and background. SRN then searches its database to generate a list of scholarships for which users may be eligible. SRN also provides a great deal of information about loans, including information about the maximum amount that can be borrowed from each of the main loan programs, the criteria, and warning signs of fraudulent scholarships.

Kachina Technologies Graduate students may find the scholarship search engines somewhat frustrating to use, because they focus primarily on the needs of undergraduates. Kachina Technologies, an Albuquerque software company, sponsors a site with links to information about a broad range of scholarships, fellowships, and post-doctoral research projects for graduate students. Links to renowned awards such as Rhodes Scholarships are available, but this site's strength is its links to a large number of virtually un~own awards. Although the site is not visually appealing, it does allow risers to quickly evaluate a large number of scholarships to find the one that is best for them.

Higher Education Services Corporation

Most states have Web sites that go into varying levels of detail about financial aid available to their residents. One of the most comprehensive is New York's Higher Education Services Corporation. The Paying For College section of HESC's site includes a long list of grants and scholarships available to New York residents, including many obscure grants. This site also provides a variety of tips about saving for college. The list of information required to fill out financial aid forms is worth printing, so users will be able to have the information lined up before they begin the arduous application process.