Where does aid come from?

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In this section you'll find dozens of articles about Financial Aid. You can read about student loans, the FAFSA & Profile as well as the Expected Family Contribution (EFC) and what it means for you. You'll also find some of the tips and tricks we recommend to save you money throughout your college adventure.

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Written by Michael Karp

Saturday, 22 August 2009 10:08

Where does the financial aid come from?

Each academic year (July 1st - June 31st) there is over a hundred billion dollars in financial aid available for students. These funds come from four main sources. The first and most talked about is the Private source. These would be from funds coming from your church, high school, rotary club or an independent scholarship you have applied for. Private scholarships make up a very small percentage of the total amount of financial aid provided to students.

Some good private scholarships to look at are listed below: Each private scholarship must be applied to individually.

Become an Apple Scholar. For the computer nerds in the crowd, Apple awards scholarships to high school seniors who use technology in academics in an innovative way. The winners get a new MacBook Pro, iPod Nano, and $2,000.
Google for girls. For you young female techies, Google offers the Anita Borg Scholarship that awards $10,000 in scholarship money to women entering their senior year of undergraduate study in computer science, computer engineering, or related technical field majors.IEEE Computer Society. The IEEE Computer Society awards $4,000 in scholarship money to college juniors, seniors, and graduate students who are studying in a computer-related field.

Microsoft scholarships. Microsoft awards more than $500,000 in scholarship money each year to current undergraduate students.

The majority of aid comes from either the State or Federal Government. Both use the information collected off of the FAFSA to calculate what your family is eligible for. These two entities make up approximately 75% of all of the aid in the system. The final source is directly from the institution itself. Many private and few public schools have endowment or trust funds which they can use to make their school more affordable for those that need assistance or have earned assistance through their merit. In order to qualify for your institutional aid you will need to file the FAFSA as well as any additional forms the institution may require.

Last Updated on Tuesday, 08 September 2009 08:25

AidLink provides information on college admissions, financial aid, scholarships, federal, state and institutional grants, the financial aid process, methods to maximize financial aid eligiblity and more. Our goal is to help every family select the best school and develop a reliable plan to pay for college. Remember, never pay someone to just file your FAFSA. To complete your FAFSA, for free, visit www.fafsa.ed.gov To complete your CSS Financial Aid Profile visit www.collegeboard.com

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