What exactly is financial aid? Do you have to pay back the money given to you?
Same thing for student loans and grants.
If I have a job, does that decrease the amount of money I’ll be receiving for financial aid, student loans, grants and scholarships?
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You do not have to pay back grants but you do the loans. A job will decrease the amount you recieve.
Great site for this question: http://www.nasfaa.org/subhomes/doitaffordit/afforditcover.html
What you do is you apply for financial aid on the FAFSA home page, and please do it online it is so much faster! Apply January of the year you will need it. Do it January 1 using the last taxes you did as an estimate, then when you get your W2s after January 1 do yours and your parents taxes fast and go back on the FAFSA homepage and make corrections with the actual numbers. This is what we did. My daughter is attending fall 2010, January 1 2010 we need the FAFSA using our 2008 taxes. Then when we got our 2009 taxes done as soon as we could we went and made the corrections. This is because the earlier you apply the more you will get based on your financial need. Because the govt make all the financial available Jan 1 and then students start getting the aid and the amount of money gets less and less as time goes on so.
Note the dates because there are deadlines to apply for the FAFSA.
Grants do not have to be paid back. There are federal and state grants (govt), colleges offer their own grants too.
Student loans are paid back by the student. Federal loans, and private loans. Federal loans are stafford loans that the govt offeres. These are special loans. They are subsidized and unsubsidized. Subsidized are given based on financial need and unsubsidized are not. When do you pay them back: http://www.slfc.com/payingstaffordpayback.html. There are limits to how much you can get: http://studentaid.ed.gov/PORTALSWebApp/students/english/studentloans.jsp
Other student loans are private loans, you get through your bank etc.
There are also federal parent loans: http://studentaid.ed.gov/PORTALSWebApp/students/english/parentloans.jsp
Parents can also take out private loans like from a bank etc.
The student can also ask federal work study on the FAFSA, Based on financial need you get a job at your college or in the community (you apply for open jobs) and you work around your school schedule for at least minimum wage up to amount you get. My daughter 1000 so she will work until she earns 1000 and will get a check every 2 weeks and the job will end after she earns that money and she spends that how she wishes.
Your fafsa includes your taxes and your parents (if you are a dependent student) and those incomes are used to calculate your financial need.
Here is a great site to inform you: http://www.finaid.org/
Also you can apply for scholarships to help you pay for college.