By Katherine O'Brien, MA CCPS
Founder, Celtic College Consultants
Author, Every Catholic’s Guide to
College: The Best US Colleges & Universities for Practicing Catholics,
2018 & 2019, and The Ultimate Guide to Top Quality College Planning, all available
through Amazon.com
Photo by Pepi Stojanovski on unsplash.com
Financial Aid, Scholarships
First things first.
Your child WILL be eligible for federal financial aid, even if s/he
earns a non-accredited diploma. S/He’ll
need to file the FAFSA (Free Application for Federal Student Aid) each year,
just like all other students.
Financial
Aid & Scholarships Basics
Financial aid and scholarships MUST be applied
for. There are a number of means to do
so: financial aid applications, scholarship applications, etc. Sometimes the student’s application for
admissions is also used to determine his or her eligibility for various
scholarship programs the school offers.
Sometimes a separate application, or series of applications and/or
interviews will be required.
IT IS IMPERATIVE THAT EACH COLLEGE’S FINANCIAL AID
AND SCHOLARSHIP WEBSITE BE CAREFULLY REVIEWED.
The particular opportunities, requirements, and deadlines at that
institution will be posted. Some schools
have a central scholarships page, sometimes with their own search function,
while others have information scattered around.
Scholarships can be given by the university, the college within the
university, and/or the academic and athletic departments.
Need Based
Aid – is comprised of tuition
reductions, grants, and loans which are qualified for on the basis of
“need.” In common parlance, anyone whose
budget comes up short would be thought to be in need. In the realm of financial aid, there are
formuli used to determine need, also known as demonstrated need. Forms must be completed and submitted by
deadlines set by the schools. For
federal student aid, the FAFSA form (fafsa.ed.gov) is the form which qualifies
all citizens and legal aliens for federal student aid programs ranging from
Pell grants to federal student and parent loan programs. Colleges award need based federal aid before
they award any other aid. There are a
couple of colleges in the country who have opted out of the federal student aid
programs. These schools have their own
financial aid programs.
Colleges can also provide need based aid to
students. Many use the FAFSA formula as
their guide. Some colleges and
universities also require the CSS PROFILE (profileonline.collegeboard.org) form
and/or their own forms. A few colleges
require their own forms.
EFC/Expected
Family Contribution – is the
official amount of money the FAFSA or PROFILE processor determines, based on
their formula, that the student and his or her family can pay for one year of
college. There are five factors that
contribute to the EFC:
1. Parent
income (for the calendar year before
the year in which the student is applying; for the 2020/2021 school year, 2018
income information will be used.) is based on the Adjusted Gross Income (bottom
line on your 1040) of the parents. In
the case of divorce, the parent is the one with whom the student lives more
than half of the time or the parent who provides more than half of the
financial support. (50.1%) If the parent
is re-married, s/he will report the income of both him/herself and his/her
spouse.
2. Parent
assets (current at the time of the
form filing) including all portfolio assets with the exception of the family
residence, retirement savings, life insurance, and/or annuities. Businesses are valued at zero if there are
fewer than 100 employees. See PROFILE
instructions for their alternate rules.
3. Student
income (for the same calendar year
as the parents. For example, for a
student graduating in June 2019, starting college during the 2019/2020 school
year (fall – summer), 2017 income information will be used.
4. Student
assets, current at the time of the
initial FAFSA filing. The same assets
are reported for the student as were for the parents.
5. Resources include all outside resources, be they money from grandparents
or private scholarships.
Grants – are monies given to students based on need. They can be federal money, like Pell or SEOG
grants, or they can be money from the state, like the CalGrant program in
California, or from the college itself.
Grants do not need to be repaid.
Scholarships – are monies given to students based on merit of
some kind. There are two main categories
of scholarships, from a financial aid eligibility perspective. Institutional scholarships comprise
93% of all scholarship dollars. These
funds come directly from the colleges themselves. Private Scholarships are those offered
by other organizations like the Knights of Columbus, Nordstrom, etc. Private scholarships are considered resources
by the financial aid formuli. They
reduce a student’s eligibility for need based aid dollar for dollar.
Some scholarships have a need component. This means that the scholarship awarding
agency takes into account both merit qualifications and the student’s financial
need.
Some scholarship money may be taxed. Money used for purposes other than tuition
and fees is considered taxable income to the student. Check with your tax preparer for particular
information for your situation.
Gap – is the difference between your demonstrated need
and the amount of financial aid offered.
Most schools “gap” students; they do not meet the full demonstrated
need.
Other Aid – Some schools participate in collectives through
which they offer tuition discounts to students who live in certain other
states. The Western Undergraduate
Exchange & the Midwest Student Exchange Program are two examples. These tuition reductions are not need based
and are only merited by virtue of the student’s state of residence. Not every public school in states that
participate in an exchange offers the program.
Some limit the program to include or exclude certain majors. Details are found on each regional exchange’s
website.
Net Price
Calculator – By federal law, every
college and university is required to have a net price calculator on its
website. Sadly, many tuck them away and make
them difficult to find. It is often
easier to simply use the school’s search function to find it. In order to get an accurate estimation, the
calculator will need to ask about the student’s GPA and test scores. The less information requested, the less
reliable the estimate will be. Sadly,
they are not required to provide a calculator that gives an accurate estimate
of inquiring student’s likely out of pocket costs.
Katherine O’Brien, MA CCPS is a Catholic
homeschooling mother of six who has homeschooled since 1998. She is the founder of Celtic College
Consultants and has served college bound teens all across the US since 2004. Students in her 2015 -2018 classes were
offered over $237,000 each, on average, in merit scholarships. In 2017,
Katherine compiled and released Every Catholic’s Guide to College: The 315
Best US Colleges & Universities for Practicing Catholics, 2018. It is available on Amazon.com. Kolbe Academy families are eligible for 10%
off of all of her services and $100 off her initial consultation fee.
