Complete Financial Aid Application Early For More Money

Published on Tuesday, March 29th, 2011 by Ryan Collins Category: College News

San Francisco, CA (CollegetoCareers.com) – Education continues to suffer setbacks nationwide as budget cuts force public universities and colleges to drastically increase their tuition rates.

This yields a greater effect, in turn, on student debt, which continues to skyrocket. The latest figure on student debt is somewhere around $896 billion, reports the Project on Student Debt – making this the first time that student debt eclipses credit card debt.

Financial Aid Early As tuition rises at a rapid rate and student loans become larger and larger, it becomes apparent that anyone with collegial aspirations needs to fill out the Free Application for Financial Student Aid, better known as FAFSA, which becomes essential for anyone wanting to pay for tuition, books, and other expenses.

Rebecca Jarvis, the business news and economics correspondent for CBS’ “Early Show,” said that those who fill out the application earlier than others receive more federal funds than those who wait until the deadline.

The reason why: FAFSA reserves funds for students on a first-come, first-serve basis. Those who apply earlier can receive as much as $7,000 more in financial aid for submitting their FAFSA forms.

Chris Wragge, who co-anchors the show, stresses the additional need for a student to make her or himself as possible. If the student is accepted into a first school of choice, and is without means to pay for it in its entirety, it is important for said student to raise the issue with the school’s financial aid department. Jarvis adds that the worst the school can say is no.

Another strategy is to compare the financial aid packages from each school. If a student is accepted into one with a better financial aid offer than others schools offer, the student should not be afraid to mention the strength of her or his financial aid package from other schools and ask for something similar.

Other factors that a student should include in her or his application include whether there has been an illness in the family, a change of job circumstances, or someone in said student’s family lost a job. People make themselves more appealing to colleges on these grounds, particularly in the aftermath of the recent recession.

For more information on paying for college, visit our College Scholarships page.

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