average financial aids

Paying for College
1

<p>from lots of websites, i can see a column or a number of average financial aids. (it's usually about 20K). does that mean 20K per year or 20K in a total within 4 years?
thanks!</p>

2

<p>bump!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!</p>

3

<p>20k per year. =)</p>

4

<p>wait, are you sure it's 20k per year? My guidance counselor told me it was 20k in a total</p>

5

<p>The average financial aid award for any given college/university is not a useful piece of information. What you want to know is how much aid that college/university is likely to give YOU. So, unless they have some fancy calculator on their website, or a clearly stated policy guaranteeing so much money for such-and-such factor (parental income, GPA, ACT/SAT scores, eye-color, or whatever else they guarantee money for), you aren't going to know what their policy is. I know this is pretty rotten, but that is the way it is.</p>

<p>Not to mention that many colleges/universities don't indicate how much of that "average financial aid" is student loans.</p>

6

<p>The US News Ultimate Guide does give the average financial aid award for many colleges. It also breaks down the awards into grants, loans, ws and merit/athletic scholarships. The only way you can figure how much YOU are going to get is to apply. The next best thing is to use the calculators that are specific to school. However, a quick idea can be derived if you estimate where you are in the applicant pool of a given college, check out the financial aid breakdowns, and look at the things that are taken into consideration in the financial aid apps at a given school. If your parents own a home, a school where the home value is capped or not taken into account can make a difference. By picking carefully, you can up your odds of a good package.</p>

7

<p>Zbn, the schools often list an "average loan indebtedness" statistic. That is for 4 years (or however long it takes a student to graduate). That means that the average student who borrows loans will borrow that amount over the course of his/her undergraduate program. The other info they list is generally for a year.</p>