Tips for Increasing Your Financial Aid

January 5, 2012 | By stacyfox In Uncategorized |

The students graduating from high school are an unlucky crowd in many ways. First of all, there are a lot of them down only slightly from last year’s highest ever crop of graduates. Next, more of them are going to college. Nearly 77 percent of students will attend some form of post-secondary education directly after college. The financial crisis has affected the ability of student loans. Finally, the endowments of many colleges have shrunk which has made the aid they have traditionally made available decrease. In this environment, it is important to maximize your chances of getting a good financial aid package. This article includes tips for increasing your financial aid.

First of all, you might consider going to a college where you are “above average.” If you are applying to the most competitive schools and are in the middle of the pack in terms of grades and test scores, the college has little incentive to sweeten the financial aid package to get you to come. But, if you will help the college increase their statistics or provide needed variety to the class, they may be willing to give you more in terms of free aid.

If you don’t think the FAFSA Expected Family Contribution amount represents your family’s true situation, you can file an appeal with the school. This generally only works if there is something extraordinary such as a recent layoff of a primary income earner or very high health care bills. But, it doesn’t take much effort to fill out an appeal form and it could bring in thousands of dollars in aid.

If you get financial aid offers from two schools and the college you really want to attend comes in lower than the other one, make a copy of your second choice’s award letter and forward it to the first choice school. They may match it.

But don’t just depend on the institutional aid. Go out and look for scholarships yourself.

There are free online databases of scholarships that you can search to find money to apply for. Some of these scholarships actually go unclaimed each year because nobody applies. Doing a little front end work can save you a lot of money and allow you to go to your first choice school.

While it may be harder to get into college and to pay for college than ever before, resourceful students will find a way to make post-secondary education a reality.

Need money for college? Use FastWeb’s free scholarship search to find information on more than 600,000 scholarships!

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