Where To Find Money for College
Filed under: Financial aid for college, Money & Finance, Teens
Need Money for College Tuition
In the ideal world you would have a college fund for each of your children. But how many of us actually live in an ideal world? If your a parent then your life is full of bills for braces, day care, music lesson, tutors, summer camp etc. and it can be hard to find any money to put toward that far away place called college. So you rack your brains thinking where to find money for college? Okay, here is where to find money for college:
There really are a variety of financial aid programs that your student may qualify for. Before you even start looking for financial aid, decide what schools your child wants to apply to. I say this because many schools have generous financial aid programs and you may not have to look for additional money after you see what the school can offer.
Have your child apply to all the schools he or she is really interested in even if you think you can not afford the tuition. Here is where so many people go wrong – they think they can not afford to send their child to expensive private school because they can’t pay the tuition. But actually some of the private schools are very well funded and can offer generous financial aid to your child and in the end you may put out less money for your child to attend the expensive private school than the cheaper state school.
The first step in where to find money for college is to fill out your FAFSA (Free Application for Federal Student Aid). The deadline is June 30 but you want to get yours in as soon as you can because some aid is given out on a first come first serve basis. This means you will have to do your tax return early because FAFSA is mostly based on income level, but it is worth it because it may get your student extra money for college. If you just can’t do the tax return give your best estimate based on last years return.
When you apply for the FAFSA, make sure you have the following documents on hand:
1. Your social security card
2. Your parents’ social security cards, if you are a dependent
3. Your driver’s license
4. Your previous year’s tax documents
5. Information concerning any untaxed income
Another where to find money for college is the college itself. Many schools have scholarship funds, merit and need based, and they usually have endowments which allows them to give quite a bit of money to qualified students. Endowments are large amounts of money that people have given to the institution either as an alumni or for tax write offs or just because they want to help kids get a college education.
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