Federal seog grant

For high school seniors applying to college, April is typically the month when admission decisions and financial aid award letters arrive in the mail. These letters detail how much aid you will receive from each school. Financial aid packages can influence your school choice, and obviously, you want to get the best package possible from each institution. To help you better understand how to get the funding you deserve, CAREERS & COLLEGES went right to the source--the financial aid directors. We asked them to explain the process, give us some tips, and warn us of the pitfalls.

What are the most common mistakes students make in the financial aid process?

Berkeley: The biggest problem is thinking there is no aid for you and not applying at all. Every student should fill out the FAFSA, no matter what you think your need is. A lot of institutions use the FAFSA to award institutional aid, and this type of aid is not always based on need.

AIC: Many times people don't fill out the FAFSA correctly, and that can cause a delay. I've seen everything from students leaving fields blank, to not giving the appropriate tax information off their tax returns. Students often incorrectly report their "tax paid." Not applying on time is a common mistake. You have to be sensitive to deadlines at the individual colleges. Our priority deadline happens to be May 1. You can miss out on aid if you don't apply on time.

Redlands: Our priority deadline to file the FAFSA is February 15, and for merit scholarships our priority deadline is December 15. Students must meet these deadlines. Also, a lot of errors can be made on the paper FAFSA. That's why I always suggest that students file the FAFSA online because there is built-in editing in the program. Students can know right away if they've made an error. I notice that a lot of families don't put their "untaxed income" on either forms.

Iona: The most common mistake students make when trying to get aid is using a service that charges them to fill out the FAFSA. These services guarantee them some type of aid--well, all students are eligible for loans. The form is free to file, and a lot of times these services fill out the FAFSA incorrectly.

Do you have other advice on filing the FAFSA?

Berkeley: I also never see any reason to have the FAFSA filled out for a fee. I don't think it's that difficult. You must file the FAFSA early as possible. There are certain funds--federal SEOG grants, Perkins loans, and institutional aid--that are limited. Schools get an allocation of these funds and once they're gone, they're gone. And don't put off filing the FAFSA because you haven't done your taxes yet. You can fill out the form using estimated income information.

Redlands: Be careful not to underestimate your income--your whole financial aid package can change later if you estimate wrong. If you do estimate, be sure to get your taxes done by April 15. That way if you need to make changes or send a completed tax return to a financial aid office, you can. And by getting the most accurate tax information to each college, you will have the most accurate financial aid packages to compare before May 1 (the standard candidate's reply date when deposits are due). There's a process in financial aid called verification, where we have to verify the financial information of at least 30 percent of our students.

What advice can you give on getting private scholarships?

Iona: We recommend checking out Fastweb.com for outside scholarships. Students should check with their parents' unions as well.

AIC: Applying for scholarships takes time to write the essays and fill out the applications, but if you don't do it you can miss out on some big opportunities.

Berkeley: Scholarships aren't going to just drop in your lap unless you're a top, top student. It takes hard work. For the average student there's plenty of aid out there.

Redlands: The bigger the high school, the harder it is for students to get scholarship information, but be in touch with your high school guidance office. I think there's a lot of scholarships out there that students don't know about. For example, if you're a descendent of any Native American culture, you can get money from the tribes. In some cases, you can be as little as 1/16 Native American.

How is your school with institutional aid?

Redlands: We give out about $22 million in institutional money every year, and it goes to 85 percent of our 2,300 students. We have merit-based awards based on academics and a high discount which is strictly need-based.

Iona: We offer a variety of academic scholarships depending on high school averages and SAT scores. To receive these monies, you must file an FAFSA.

Berkeley: We give out $12 million each year, and I'd say that almost every student who applies gets some institutional aid. Just because you're not a 4.0 student, doesn't mean you're not going to get any institutional aid. What comes to mind is a scholarship we have for students of Portuguese descent. Someone on our board of trustees endowed it. We also have a matching scholarship program. Any student that presents an award from an outside source, we'll match it up to $1,800.

AIC: The admission office looks at every candidate to see if they are eligible for an academic scholarship. We also have a very big athletic scholarship program for a school our size (1,100 undergraduates). We have scholarships for football, basketball, hockey, volleyball, lacrosse, tennis, field hockey, and soccer.

Do students take advantage of state aid?

Redlands: In California students miss out on state aid if they don't ask their high school counselor to send in their GPA to the state. They have to do their GPA verification form by March 2. If they don't do it, they miss out on the state grant, which can be as much as $8,322. It was reduced this year from $9,708 last year because of budget cuts.

AIC: I find that many times students miss the deadlines for state aid. To receive state aid in Massachusetts, you must file the FAFSA by May 1. Returning upperclassmen in particular forget that they have to apply each year, and that's a problem. I'd say half of all our students file after May 1, and they will not be eligible for state aid.

How do loans fit into the overall aid picture?

Iona: We have 1,799 day undergraduates taking out loans--that's 58 percent of our total population. If you look at the students whose packages included loans, 48 percent of their package is comprised of loan money.

Redlands: Incoming freshmen here could see anywhere from $2,625 to $5,625 in loans in their package, what I find very frustrating is that in the last three or four years, families that need to borrow are relying on their kids to pick out alternative loans in their name rather than in the parents' names. The reason is with most of these student alternative loans you can defer the principal but with a Parent PLUS loan you can't defer the principal.

Berkeley: We encourage families to apply for a PLUS loan before an alternative loan because PLUS has a good interest rate and favorable repayment terms. But some parents would rather have their kids sign up for loans and have them carry the debt burden. More and more each year, parents seem unable to contribute to their children's education. They don't have the savings put away. The best use of a private alternative loan is when the parent is unable to help the student, and the student is limited by federal guidelines as to the amount of federal Stafford loan funds they can borrow.

How do you feel about students working to pay for college?

Redlands: I believe in work study. At our institution you can only work 10 hours a week. It's a good way to get involved in campus and a good way to earn money for books, toiletries, and other expenses. One of the hard things for students who work off-campus, though, is that they must report more income for themselves on the FAFSA. Then their expected contribution goes up and the amount of aid they receives goes down. It's a bit of a Catch 22.

Iona: The earnings a student makes from work-study are not counted on the following year's FAFSA. You are not penalized for these earnings. I definitely think it's a great opportunity to earn money on campus, and a lot of times, students are employed in offices for their whole college career and can use that experience on their resumes.

AIC: I really like to plug the work-study program. I think it's an invaluable program for students. They can really hone job skills, and wherever we can, we try to match the work to their major or course of study. Many financial aid administrators started out as work-study students.

Do you have any suggestions on how to lower college costs?