by Lynn O’Shaughnessy, link here

What schools offer the best college financial aid?

Last month, I wrote this post: 51 Colleges with the Best Student Financial Aid.

Please take a look at the list because it includes schools with awesome financial aid policies that will reduce your stress about how you will pay for college. Researchers from the University of Pennsylvania and Amherst College assembled the names of colleges and universities that offered financial aid packages that didn’t include student loans.

You can also find a list of schools with great college financial aid at ProjectOnStudentDebt.org.

But here’s a problem: The list of colleges with the best student financial aid is in flux. The days of no-loan financial aid programs could be ending for many middle-income and affluent families. In fact, at least two colleges on the list of the 51 Colleges with the Best Student Financial Aid, wouldn’t even qualify anymore.

Last week Williams College announced that it was reducing the eligibility for its gold-plated college financial aid help.  Dartmouth College announced yesterday that it was ending its no-loan student financial aid policy. From now on families with incomes above $75,000 will have to borrow some of the tab.

I suspect the announcements will keep coming.

It was hardly a surprise that elite colleges, which traditionally offer the best financial aid, would start rolling back their cushy financial aid programs. You see these colleges launched these aid programs back in late 2007 and early 2008 –  right before the stock market collapsed and endowments started tanking.

When the no-loan financial aid policies first began in 2007, elite institutions didn’t want to be left behind so within a breathtakingly short period many super selective colleges and universities piled on. Now that Williams and Dartmouth have made their moves, I wouldn’t be surprised if many more colleges become stingier.

Lynn O’Shaughnessy is the author of The College Solution, an Amazon bestseller, and she writes a college blog for CBSMoneyWatch. Follow her on Twitter.

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The waiting game is the hardest part of the college financial and selection process.  Everybody has to play this game.  But if you cut this game short, you could lose a lot of money and spend more on college than you need.

During the fall, students and parents are consumed with college admission applications.  For many families, they longed for the day when the admissions applications would be over.  Sometimes it took months to finish.  Then when December and January rolled around, the financial applications started.  Maybe yours only took a day.  For a few unlucky contestants, days turned into weeks.

But now for most of you, the admissions applications are done, and the financial applications are history.  So what’s the next step?  Do you jump at that admissions offer from your student’s top choice?  Do you take the school with the lower sticker price?  What if you haven’t heard anything out of the schools yet?  Have they forgot about you?  What do you do now?

This is where the hardest part of the college selection process starts.  It’s nerve-wracking.  It’s frustrating.  It’s going to play with your mind and make you feel like you don’t know what you are doing.  It’s… waiting.  Yes, waiting.  The one thing that Americans are the worst at of any people on earth… waiting.  Just think of it as a character building experience arranged for you by God Almighty.  He always said that patience was a virtue.  Now you get to prove it.

Colleges and universities need time in making these decisions.  They’ve got thousands of applications to sort through.  Some are faster than others.  Some are slower than others.  But don’t fret.  This is just the way the game works.  What’s the old proverb from the military… “hurry up and wait”

You need to wait for all of the financial offers to come in from the schools you or your student applied to.  Then you need to take your time to compare those offers.  Then you need to formulate your appeals back to those colleges (negotiate) if appropriate.  It is very likely you will not actually pick a college until April or sometimes as late as May.

Now in the meantime, you might want to consider putting down the housing deposits for any schools you or your student is exceptionally interested in.  Housing deposits are often non-refundable, so you have to be willing to give those up if you decide on a better offer at a different school.  But at least putting down a housing deposit will give many students comfort in the face of risking the dreaded “temp-housing”.

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A new and unfamiliar question has popped up at the end of the FAFSA this year… “Select the rigorous high school program of study that you completed.”  This question has confused a lot of parents and students; particularly when one of the available answers is the Department of Defense education activity course.

This question specifically addresses the student’s eligibility for the Academic Competitiveness Grant (ACG).  To qualify for the ACG, the student must:

1. Be eligible for the Pell Grant
2. Be entering the Freshman or Sophomore years of college
3. And have completed a rigorous secondary school program of study.

So what is a rigorous secondary school program?  According to the Department of Education, a rigorous secondary school program of study meets any one of the following five criteria.

1. Rigorous secondary school programs designated by state education agencies (SEAs) and state-authorized local education agencies (LEAs) and recognized by the Secretary of Education.
2. Advanced or honors secondary school programs established by states.
3. Secondary school programs identified by a state-level partnership recognized by the State Scholars Initiative of the Western Interstate Commission for Higher Education (WICHE) of Boulder, Colorado.
4. A program for a student who completes at least two courses in the International Baccalaureate (IB) Diploma Program with a score of four or higher on the course examinations or at least two Advanced Placement (AP) courses with a score of three or higher on the College Board’s exams for those courses.
5. A secondary school program in which a student completes, at minimum:
• Four years of English;
• Three years of math, including algebra I and a higher level class such as algebra II, geometry, or data analysis and statistics;
• Three years of science, including one year each of at least two of the following courses: biology, chemistry, and physics;
• Three years of social studies; and
• One year of a language other than English.

For most students, the last two qualifiers are likely to be the ones to fall under.  Either your student has taken AP courses or they have completed the classes indicated in #5.  For those students who have gone to military provided schools (either state-side or overseas), you would fall under the Department of Defense Education Activity Course.

According to a source at FAFSA that I spoke to, it is fine to leave this question blank and then go back and amend it after your student has completed the necessary course of study.

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The FAFSA is the standardized financial information form used by all colleges and universities across the country.  For 2010, sweeping changes have come to the FAFSA form.  This 60 minute webinar will orient you to the FAFSA in its new form.  We will be covering:

• FAFSA on the web
• The PIN website
• Financial Aid Priority Deadlines
• The FAFSA worksheet
• EFC and how it impacts you

The webinar will be at 7pm (central time) on Wednesday, January 20th.  Register below.

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The 2010-2011 FAFSA Worksheet has been out for a while now.  You can get a PDF copy here. Frankly, it’s simplicity concerns me.  Let me explain.

For years, most colleges and universities have relied upon the FAFSA for the needed information to determine not only a student’s eligibility for federal financial aid sources, but the state’s, and the college’s own money as well.  The feds in their attempts to make the financial aid system simpler have stripped the FAFSA down to such little information that it will be useless for the colleges and states.  What families can expect to see in response to the stripped down FAFSA are far more complex institutional forms, more state forms, and more colleges being forced to subscribe to the CSS Profile.

What we are about to see is another great example of the law of unintended consequences.

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College Finances 101: Introduction to college funding and financial aid is now available for review.  This recording was made on the evening of December 8th, 2009 and covers the following:

• The college funding environment
• The college financial aid system
• Expected Family Contribution (EFC)
• FAFSA
• CSS Profile
• Financial Aid Priority Deadlines
• College Financial Track Records
• College Application Strategies
• College Financing
• Strategies and Tactics to Minimize College Costs and Increase College Financial Offers
• Negotiating the College Financial Award

This overview runs about 71 minutes. After you have finished watching, click the link below the video to request a PDF of the presentation be emailed to you.

Should you have any problems viewing the video, you may need to update your computer’s flash player.  You can do that at the Adobe website.

Webinar Response Form

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When is a student supposed to file their FAFSA and other financial aid forms?  This is a question families are asking all across the country right now.  Their admission applications are pretty well done.  Now it’s on to the financial paperwork… but hold on a minute.  Many parents and students are jumping the gun.

The CSS Profile has been available to file for the coming school year since October.  This gives families plenty of time to complete what is arguably the most complex of all financial aid forms.  Only about 350 colleges want the Profile filed, so the large majority of families have nothing to do with this form.  But you better be sure and double check with the schools to which you have applied to make certain you haven’t overlooked it.

The 2010-11 FAFSA will not be available until January 2010 however, and this creates some confusion.  In their zeal to get on top of all the details, many students and families have completed the already available 2009-10 FAFSA thinking they were completing the right paperwork for the next college year.  I hate to tell you this, but you just wasted a good chunk of time and energy on a form that is useless to you.

If you are one of the unfortunate students or families that were confused by the FAFSA forms, you will have to wait until January 2010 and redo the new FAFSA.  There is no way for the schools to hold over or transfer your information.  A new FAFSA must be completed.

The good news is you will be much better prepared to complete the FAFSA than your neighbors will.

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People often ask “what is the annual FAFSA or CSS Profile income limit that still allows my student to get college financial aid?”  This is a logical question, right?  The IRS uses all kinds of income limits for taxes.  Loan companies have income limits for borrowing money.  Colleges have grade point, ACT, or SAT limits for awarding money.  So what’s the income limit for getting college financial aid?

There is none.  There are no income limits for college financial aid.

College financial aid is a very complex calculation which utilizes student and parent income and assets, number of students in college, the cost of the college, amount of taxes paid, and a whole host of other information to determine what a student is eligible for.  There are no hard and fast rules that says one family will get $5,000, but the family making X number of dollars more will get nothing.  In fact, I have seen situations where a family with income around $70,000 per year received no financial help from a college, while a family making $200,000 received a pretty good chunk of money.  The money the student is awarded is dependent upon the unique factors of that student’s individual family.

Now there are some pieces of financial aid which have EFC (expected family contribution) limits attached to them such as Pell Grants, SEOG grants, and certain subsidized loans.  But EFC and income are not directly correlated.  There are also some individual colleges and universities which will have their own internal policies keyed to specific income levels, but these individual policies are not universal by any means.  For example, Harvard University will cover the total cost of college for student’s whose families make less than $60,000 per year.  But again, this is specific to Harvard.  Also, students whose families make more than $60,000 will be eligible for substantial amounts of financial help specific to their unique circumstances.

Do not get hung up on any kind of income limits.  Always complete the financial aid paperwork.  If you have heard about some income limit above which students don’t get any help, then your listening to useless rumor and inuendo.

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Next Webinar is…

Tuesday, December 8th, 2009 at 7pm Central Time

Register Below

College Finances 101 has now come to the web. Attendees have been praising this ground breaking presentation for years; now you can participate in the comfort of your own home or at work.

In 90 minutes, I will cover the most important aspects of minimizing your students’ costs for college. You will learn…

• How parents can often send their children to expensive private colleges for less money than a state school.
• How to fix lost money caused by popular college savings plans.
• How to identify schools that give you more free money.
• The great myths and misconceptions about college funding that can cost you thousands of dollars.
• What assets are penalized 4 times higher than others when applying for help.
• Why waiting one year can cost you as much as $5,000.

“The information Mr. Anderson shared was
incredibly eye opening.” — Tricia Christiansen, Guidance Counselor,
Hampton-Dumont HS, Hampton, Iowa

“What an eye opener! We wish we had
attended this seminar sooner. This seminar has given us ideas and
information but also hope…” — Dave & Maria Sullivan, Rock
Island, Illinois

“He has provided our families with
invaluable information. Scott does an excellent job…” — Linda
Cutler, Guidance Counselor, Rockridge High School, Taylor Ridge,
Illinois

“Listening to all the options available
to pay for college encouraged us that we don’t have to sacrifice a
quality education because of a lack of money.” Pastor Scott & Tonya
Culley, Silvis, Illinois

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I just finished reading Financing Your Future by Linda Abraham and Rebecca Blustein.  I’ve been following Linda Abraham (founder of Accepted.com) for some time now.  Her specialty is in helping students get admitted into graduate level college programs, but this is the first of her books that I have read.  For obvious reasons, college financing will always rise immediately to the top of my interest list.

There are some significant differences between funding for undergraduate college and graduate level college.  The Secrets to Real College Savings will not cover all the intricacies of graduate level finances.  Linda and Rebecca do a good job of providing an overview of graduate level college funding in their book.  I appreciate their writing style which is not populated with a lot of fluff to fill pages.  Thankfully, they apparently do not believe that the value of a college financial guide is determined by its thickness.  Their guide is also populated with dozens of hyper-links to more online resources helpful to grad students.

If you are an aspiring graduate student, I recommend you check out Financing Your Future.

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