Appealing Financial Aid Packages

If the financial aid package awarded to your college-bound student is not as generous as you had hoped, you may be able to appeal. Contact the financial aid office at the college(s) your student wants to attend and bring to their attention any circumstances that affect your family's ability to pay for college.

Some common examples are:

• Expenses to send younger children to a private elementary or secondary school
• Debt resulting from uninsured medical expenses
• Unemployment, disability, or a death in the family that affects the family's finances

Financial aid officers are often able to adjust aid packages when hardship circumstances are brought to their attention. You'll be asked to provide documentation to substantiate your hardship claim.

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Take a Bite Out of College Costs

College costs are on the rise. This should come as no surprise to anyone who has read a newspaper or listened to news reports in the last five years. The cost of an average college education has been rising two to three times the rate of inflation. The average cost of a four-year private college is more than $90,000 and more than $40,000 at four-year public colleges.

Scary numbers? You bet! The good news is there are options for you to help your college-bound student pay for college. Your options range from saving through a state-sponsored tuition assistance program, filing for tax credits related to higher education costs and applying for need-based financial aid and scholarship programs.

Most states have tuition assistance programs, designed to save money to help pay for your student's college education. Depending on when you begin saving, the age of your child, when/where they will be headed to college and the type of savings plan you choose, you can develop a financial game-plan for meeting the cost of their education.

Another option is the Coverdell Education Savings Account (ESA), which was formerly known as the Education IRA. The ESA is a trust or custodial account created for the purpose of paying the qualified education expenses of the beneficiary. While contributions to an ESA are not excluded from gross income, the earnings accumulate tax-free.

You may make contributions to a Coverdell ESA and a state-sponsored prepaid tuition plan in the same year for the same beneficiary.

You may also claim the Hope and Lifetime earning tax credits in the same year a tax-free distribution is taken from a Coverdell ESA, as long as the distribution isn't used to pay the same expenses for which the credit is claimed.

Explore all the options for free money for college. Most states have a state grant program for students who meet financial need criteria. Scholarships are another form of free money usually based on merit, special abilities or skills, and in some cases awarded through religious affiliations, businesses, unions and civic organizations. You and your college-bound student can check out the free undergraduate scholarship search in the ‘Paying’ section of www.EducationPlanner.org, which offers 1.8 million scholarships and awards worth nearly $8 billion.

Last, but not least, apply for federal student aid - many families assume they will not qualify for some type of federal aid, so they don't apply. It doesn't cost anything to complete the FAFSA (Federal Application for Federal Student Aid); the information you and your college-bound student provide on the FAFSA determines your student's eligibility for federal grants, work-study, and student loans. You should complete the FAFSA as soon as possible after January 1st of your student's senior year of high school.

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Who Is More Likely to Earn a Bachelor's Degree?

A study released by the U.S. Department of Education found that students who complete a challenging high school curriculum have a higher likelihood of earning a bachelor's degree. The study, The Toolbox Revisited: Paths to Degree Completion From High School Through College, found that the academic intensity of a high school curriculum is the strongest indicator of postsecondary degree completion, regardless of a student's major course of study.

The study followed a nationally representative group of students, the high school class of 1992, from high school through college to determine the factors that contributed to students' completing their bachelor's degree by their mid-20s. The study was limited to students who attended a four-year college at any time, including students who started their postsecondary education at community colleges.

The full report can be found on the U.S. Department of Education's website.

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Check out our college and career planning website:
http://www.EducationPlanner.org/

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