Soon seniors across the country will begin to receive their award letters.
Some may have just applied to one or two schools and comparing the cost of them may be easy.
But many others have applied to multiple schools and as they start to receive the award letters they quickly realize that determining which college is offering the best financial aid package is not as clear cut as they had hoped.
In this article I will outline how to compare and determine which college is offering the best package.
When comparing "College Financial Aid Offer or Award Letters" there are 3 key points on which to compare colleges.
First, Amount of "Free Aid", Amount of "Conditional Aid", and finally EFC or "Expected Family Contribution".
Your job in comparing is to place aid offered into these three buckets based on your particular situation.
For instance there may be aid offers that you do not accept due to commitments required to receive them.
Free Money As the name suggests this is money that does not need to be repaid.
The most common source of "Free Money" are grants directly from the federal government and the most common of these is the Pell Grant which can go up to $5,500.
The amount of the Pell Grant should not differ between schools with the exception of a school whose total cost is less than the $5,500.
In that chase the Pell grant would equal the C.
O.
A.
Another prevalent form of free aid is the scholarship.
This will most likely be the source that varies the widest.
Schools with large endowments typically offer scholarships to most students meaning the actual cost of attending is significantly less than the sticker price.
This is also an area where filing the FAFSA early can mean all the difference in the world determining if and how much a student gets in scholarships.
Conditional Aid: This category is where you place aid that either needs to be repaid or earned For instance the Student loans and work study should be placed into this bucket...
I mean really, how much aid is the school offering if they just allow you to take the federal loan? Nothing! Work study is another one to look closely at.
For most incoming freshman the added responsibility of a job may not be desirable and the money allocated to that aid needs to be moved into the expected family contribution.
Expected Family Contribution: This will be listed on the award letter as either "EFC, Expected Family Contribution, or PLUS loan eligibility.
Either way this is the amount you and your family will need to come up with for you to attend school at that university.
Just because one school lists this as EFC doesn't mean you can't take either a private loan or the PLUS loan to cover this cost.
You can, but just remember that this is money you have to repay.
The plus loan starts repayment during school.
While most private loans like the EdAccess student loan don't begin Principle repayment until after you finish school.
I hope this guide has been of helped.
I encourage you to read more at http://www.
amcollegeloan.
com