Posted on 19 December 2009
Tags: award letters, COA, College Student Loan, Colleges, Cost of Attendance, EFC, FAFSA, federal grants, Federal Pell Grant, Financial Aid, financial aid package, GPA, Grant money, Institutional grants and scholarships, needy students, Parent Plus Loan, perkins loans, renewable, SAR, scholarships, stafford loans, Subsidized federal loan offer, Subsidized Federal loans, Tuition, universities, Unmet need, Unsubsidized federal loan offer
Financial aid award letters from the colleges where you had applied and been accepted. Now there are several different financial aid offerings. So the question is that how to know that which school package is right for you and what the terms in that package meant? Which package is better than another for you?
Features included in financial aid award letters
Here are the main features that are mostly included in college financial aid award letters:
- Cost of Attendance
- Expected Family Contribution (EFC)
- Federal Grants
- Subsidized federal loan offer
- Unsubsidized federal loan offer
- Institutional grants and scholarships
- Unmet need
Learn and try to understand each of these award letter features and compare them.
Cost of Attendance (COA)
College award letter will always give you an exact figure of the cost to attend the college. It is not cost of tuition. Cost of Attendance (COA) is comprised of following features:
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Posted on 19 December 2009
Tags: accumulate, Aggregates, college award letter, Cost of Attendance, education costs, EFC, entry-level salary, federal student loans, financial budget, Financial Commitments, financial options, grants, loan limits, long-term plan, private student loans, repayments, scholarships, stafford loans, student loan debt, Unmet need, unsubsidized aid, Work Study program
Your final college award letter will provide you some firm financial options, that will be having federal student loans for which you are approved, grants and scholarships that don’t need repayment and any unmet need.
After having that information in hand you should have to develop a solid student loan long-term plan.
Relying on the award offer you might be looking to borrow both federal loans and private student loans.
There are several factors which you should consider before determining that how much you need to borrow.
Those factors can be:
- Living expenses and tuition cost
- Limits of federal and private loans
- Present financial obligations
- Other awarded financial aid
- How much debt you can afford when you graduate
Be aware of that loans are not free money like grants and scholarships.
Try to keep your loan to the lowest dollar amount possible. Try to remain consistent with your expenses; you must use college loans only for college expenses not for partying with friends every night. Because the debt will accumulate and accrue while you are in school. It will be you who will pay it back and your future entry-level salary may not be able to cover the excessive monthly payments.
Consider Cost of Attendance
To figure out how much money loan money you need to borrow use Cost of Attendance in combination with the unmet need figure. There is Expected Family Contribution, mean that how much you and your parents are expected to contribute.
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