LHS Social Studies                                  College Prep Money and College
Summer 2018
 
A few critical things to remember:

  • Almost no one pays the “sticker price” for a school. You do not know how much it will cost until you get your financial aid (FA) package. Sometimes private schools with lots of funds are cheaper than public schools; sometimes not. Think about Return on Investment (ROI) when taking on debt, and remember to think of college debt as a business investment.
  • Make sure to look at any information that the school has on job acceptance rates after college. If you know what program or department you will attend, you should look to see if that particular information is available. You want to know what your likelihood is of having a good job right out of college. This helps inform you about what loans you might be willing to take out.
  • Deadlines are critical. You cannot miss them. Many aspects of FA are FCFS (first come first served).
  • You need to spend serious time on the FA part of the process — filling out forms, working with parents and guardians on various parts of the process, looking for scholarships. Take ownership of it.
  • Scholarship forms and essays should be taken as seriously as college applications.
  • Money attracts money. Success attracts success. Always put the scholarships and grants that you have won on your résumé right away.
  • Once a college admits you, they want to retain you. Don’t be afraid to try to negotiate if you don’t get enough aid to go to the school you want. The worst that can happen is that they say they cannot give more than they have already offered.
 
College scholarships site. This is the college scholarships portal at CollegeBoard.com. It's a pretty good place to start. Remember, if a site says that they will charge you money or asks you for information like a credit card number, don't use it.
 
Other non-profit sites include: FinAid's Scholarship search and FastWeb.
 
The U.S. Government has excellent resources that can be accessed at: U.S. Dept. of Education Guide to Federal Financial Aid; the direct link for information on the FAFSA is here.
 
And, remember there are some pretty unusual scholarships out there? Look at some of these...
 
Sample costs from some schools:

 
For other universities, in a search engine use the search string “[college/university] cost of attendance 2018”
 
Average Financial Aid Packages:
 
The College Board Includes Average Financial Package information when you enter the school you want to investigate here:
https://bigfuture.collegeboard.org/
 
Individual schools often will include their average aid package on their websites. Use the search string “Average aid package for
[X college/university] 2016”
 
You can get financial aid guidance here:

 
A comprehensive list of Return on Investment (ROI) for 1300 schools is here:
 
http://www.payscale.com/college-roi