By Jose Gomez
How can I get financial aid?
- For Federal Financial Aid:
The most direct way to get federal aid is through your FAFSA. FAFSA is an acronym for the Free Application for Federal Student Aid. I can’t stress this enough: Complete your FAFSA! (More details in the link.)
In order to complete your FAFSA, you will need all of these documents:
- Your social security number (SSN)
- [For Non-US Citizens] Your alien registration number
- Your federal income tax returns and W-2s
- Investment records and bank statements
- Records for any untaxed income
- And finally, your FSA ID number!
FAFSA opens up on October 1st of your senior year and it is due June 30th of the next year. While you will receive money if you fill it out late, it’s recommended that you fill it out as soon as possible.
After your FAFSA is processed, you will receive an EFC. The EFC is your Expected Family Contribution, which colleges will use to determine just how much financial aid you need. Please note that the information in your FAFSA will be shared with the colleges you apply to.
- For Your College’s Financial Aid:
As mentioned before, your college has funds reserved for people who need financial aid. Some of this money is awarded to students for their accomplishments. Other college scholarships are awarded based on your financial need and don’t require any application process.
Because every college is different, check out these different institutional scholarships in order to get a glimpse of what might be available to you. However, before you receive any of these financial aid awards, you need to fill out extra forms that may ask you to confirm the information in your FAFSA. For some colleges, you will first need to be accepted to receive that form.
- For Private Financial Aid:
In order to get financial aid from private organizations, you need to apply to scholarships just like you’ve applied to colleges so far.
“More applications?!” you might be saying. “Don’t I have enough work to do with all these college applications?”
And you’re right! But don’t feel discouraged about applying to scholarships just because of the extra effort. Sure, it’s a lot of work, but if you do it right, you might be able to get enough money to go to college for free! You read that right: you may be able to get a full ride to college if you bring your A-game in the area where you have the most control: private scholarships.
One thing to note here: there are lots of private scholarships out there, but each of them have different standards. By standards I mean that each private scholarship will expect something different from you, either with your grades, extracurriculars, and or other experiences in college.
Just remember: applying to private scholarships is optional, but it is strongly encouraged if your current financial aid is not enough to pay for college.