Unfortunately, many of the ‘systems’(financial aid, health care, legal, etc) in our society are set up to punish those who follow the rules. Depressing but true. However, this blog is not about breaking the rules or exploiting taxpayers, it is about understanding those rules in order to make the wisest choices for each person’s situation.

I took the two years of community college route in order to save money and acclimate myself to college, since I had done a somewhat non-traditional high school program. Having had a 3.9 in high school and a 4.0 getting my associate’s degree, I figured I would be golden for getting a good chunk of my next few years of school paid for by the university.

Not so much. I did get a scholarship that seemed to be a default award for transfer students with high GPAs–somewhere around $3,000 a year, I think. I eventually received another scholarship, but I had to fight for it–and apparently it only went to me by special exception after several other people had declined it. Meanwhile, the local newspaper was publishing lists of scholarships that years’ class of high school seniors had received–$20k and $30k per year packages to my school!

Every year applying for financial aid seemed to be the same–no more departmental scholarships left for the incumbent students, despite straight As.

Ultimately, there were a few things that helped. Number one was unquestionably the generosity of my parents, who shelled out several thousand per year to the school in addition to helping me somewhat with living expenses. The second was actually going to the financial aid office and asking for more scholarships–they eventually found that second scholarship they were able to give me. I also secured a couple small scholarships from extracurricular activities I participated in. While not a huge amount, getting $500/year from a choir scholarship was better than nothing. (Something else I owe to the generosity of my choir professor, who found room in her budget to help me out because she had witnessed my reliability and dedication to the program.) Once I hit the year I would turn 24, I was eligible for a Pell Grant which ended up being an almost-free ride that year–and I got an additional surprise with a $6000 addition to the Pell Grant for students excelling in science/technology/engineering/math fields. (Sadly, that grant has since been discontinued.) Spending money and living expenses were filled in with an on-campus job tutoring. Once again, I found out that it pays to be good at what you do and make your case for needing more money–I was able to talk my supervisor into giving me an extra $1/hour since I had already capped out our certification based raises and graduated, and since I was taking on a significant extra workload because they needed someone else to take a class at the last minute.

Ultimately, I made it out of school with only about $4000 in student loan debt, that being from after I received my bachelor’s and then took another year taking a couple graduate courses on the side. I appreciate my parents so much for helping me out with college–I know I wouldn’t have been able to do as well if I’d had to, say, work full time to support myself while going to school. And it’s definitely a relief not to be burdened with $30k of debt now that I’m working and making it fully on my own.

Federal loans go up to $20,500 but they’re all unsubsidized now. (http://www.lsac.org/jd/finance/financial-aid-options.asp)

And just my personal view, when he starts applying, if he has to pay 100%, it’s not the school for him.

I’ve never heard of a law school “living stipend” (that would be pretty great if it existed though!), but you can always take out unsubsidized federal loans that include living expenses. Also, he likely won’t be able to work his first year. They told us that our financial aid and our enrollment would be in jeopardy if they found out we were employed in first year. Would they actually ever know? Probably not. Would anything probably actually happen if they found out? Probably not. So it might be worth the risk.

Nonfederal loans were 7.9 billion out of 111.9 total or about 7%. If you add in nonfederal then loans are up to 48% for the whole.
Still undergrads take far lower loan amounts with nonfedeeral loans added they’d go up to around 41%.

All the data is on the college board site.

1) In the last 12 months (as of the day the student is filling out the application) who did the student live with the most?
If Mother or Father then this is the person on app, if neither move on to question 2.

2) In the last 12 months who supported the student the most financially Mother or Father?
The answer to this question is the person on the application, if neither go to question 3.

3) The last time the student was supported by a parent who was it, mother or father?

This is true in my son’s case. He’s going to an expensive private college just a few miles from our home. Because of the generous merit scholarship that the college is giving him and the fact that he can live at home, it’s cheaper than the nearest 4-year public university because he’d have to pay for housing if he went there. If a college really wants a particular student, they will find a way to make sure that he or she can afford to come.

I think the work-study regulations have changed in the last couple of years. From what my daughter’s school told us, there are relatively new federal regulations that no longer permit them to have a saved pool of work-study jobs. I personally think that’s a little nuts, but that’s what we were told. You are right that the school does get a subsidy for the wages. Maybe the financial aid person who commented earlier can clarify if schools are able to reserve jobs for work-study students, or if all jobs must be open to all students, as we were told.

Oh, I also forgot to mention one clear advantage that work-study DOES have. Those wages are not counted as income on the FAFSA, but other wages earned by the student are, and regular income earned by the student is assessed at a much higher rate than even their parents’ income for financial aid purposes.

I had a work study job in college. It was treated differently and only open to students with work study. The official work study program should have jobs may have jobs set aside only for work study. Thats how it worked at my school. The federal/state government pays most of the wages. Maybe the university in question just didn’t have open work study jobs or maybe they just didn’t treat work study different than other jobs. But with the government paying a large % of the wages, you’d expect the school or at least the department to only want the subsidized work study students.

But having said that, I do agree that work study jobs aren’t necessarily anything special. Its still just a job, wages aren’t necessarily any better than any other job and you do need to go find the job yourself. They don’t just hand you a job.

First, retirement money that it already in your accounts is not counted against you, BUT money that you’ve put in for the year you are completing the FAFSA for is. In other words, the money I put into my Roth last year was added right back into my income. I guess it’s considered optional to save for retirement during your children’s college years.

Secondly, work-study is really not all that it’s cracked up to be. Since it’s earned during the year by the student, the family still has to come up with the amount of work-study at the beginning of the year to pay their tuition bill(or at least half of it, for the fall semester). In reality,most students use their work-study for spending money. The other issue with work-study is finding a job. There are not separate jobs just for work-study students, and the student has to hustle to find his or her own job. My daughter was lucky—she was awarded work-study at first, but it was eventually removed from her pkg. due to scholarships–more on that in a bit. She found a job anyhow, but some of her friends who were awarded work-study did not find jobs.

Outside scholarships—if you think your student will qualify for a lot of outside scholarships upon h.s. graduation, remember that most of them are one-time only, and find out how your college will treat them. My daughter was lucky in that her school used them to replace some of her loans and work-study, but some schools use them to offset grant money, which really stinks.

Also, remember that just because your FAFSA form gives you a number for your EFC, that does not mean that is all you’ll be expected to pay. Oh, no—not by a long shot.You can research ahead of time which schools are generally good at meeting need. I wish we had paid more attention to those numbers. Most schools leave a “gap” beyond all the self-help aid and such. One of the schools my daughter was accepted at left a $20,000 gap that I would have been expected to fund. Nope, she didn’t go there. I would advise researching and then casting a wide net, because schools are so different when it comes to aid. One of the schools where my daughter was a top applicant did not give her their highest merit award, which had us scratching our heads. OTOH, we weren’t sure what if anything she would be awarded at her top pick, and she ended up getting their highest merit award.

And, for divorced parents, be sure to be aware of which schools require the CSS Profile form in addition to the FAFSA. There aren’t many of them compared to FAFSA only schools, but many of the top schools in the country require both, and expect both parents to contribute. My daughter was unable to apply to some of her top choices because her dad was not willing to fill out the forms or contribute to her college education beyond what he was court ordered to.

Lastly, I’ve often heard it said that sometimes,with aid, private colleges can be as cheap as public ones. I don’t think it’s really as true as it once was (if it ever was), but I know from first-hand experience it is possible. My daughter had a full tuition (not room and board, though) scholarship to our state university. Her dream school awarded her enough grant and scholarship money so that it was just slightly more expensive than our state school. Like I said, pay attention to those financial aid ratings in the guide books and cast a wide net.

I think the best way to answer this is to have the child go ahead and pay their money to the university (say they have almost one year paid for) and THEN apply for aid, after they have $0 in savings. If they have too much in savings due to hard work, they will get nothing. The school will try to get you to apply at the beginning of the school year, but I think it will work better after the child has spent it all on tuition. He/she then has a better chance at a grant.