<p>I'm looking for books that will inform/help me on the financial aid process. Which are the best books to buy? Which ones helped you the most? Thanks :)</p>
<p>Nothing beats becoming a regular visitor of this forum. Even still we are all students trying to comprehend the ever changing realm of financial aid. What is your current concern? Are you a parent or student?</p>
<p>I think “Paying For College Without Going Broke” by Kalman Chany is excellent.
It will walk you through the whole process without being intimidating, yet covers a wide variety of financial situations. It’s only about $12, so the price can’t be beat.
A new edition is coming out in October (it’s updated annually).</p>
<p>You also might want to take a look at “Personal Finance for Dummies” by Eric Tyson. It is important to view the expense of college within the framework of your overall financial situation. Tyson might have ideas that are useful for other parts of your financial life.</p>
<p>For free, check out finaid.org. Look under the Parents section, here’s an example:</p>
<p><a href=“Your Guide for College Financial Aid - Finaid”>Your Guide for College Financial Aid - Finaid;
<p>@standrews I am a student, and will be applying this coming year. I just want to get an idea of how much I am eligible for, the overall process, and the difference between FAFSA and other financial aids. My parents are a tad bit clueless, so I’m trying to find out as much as I can for them.</p>
<p>cliff, this is a good time to be gaining an understanding of fin aid. It may change your mind about which schools to apply to. While I don’t think fin aid considerations should stop you from applying to a school you are really interested in, it may create interest in some schools with good financial aid that you haven’t considered thus far. Fin aid can vary greatly from school to school.</p>
<p>For need-based fin aid, the process is basically this: The school determines what you and your family can contribute, expected family contribution (EFC), and meets all of a portion of the difference between cost of attendance (COA) and EFC. FAFSA is used to determine EFC and eligibility for federal aid. In addition CSS/Profile is used by many schools to determine EFC. A fin aid package can consist of grants (free money), work-study, and loans.</p>
<p>In the abstract fin aid can be hard to get a grip on. I would suggest finding out about the fin aid offered by a school you are interested. What are their time lines? What is their application process? Do they use FAFSA, CSS/Profile, both or something else? To get a rough idea of how “good” a college’s fin aid is, you can go to collegeboard.org, search for a college, and click on the “cost & financial aid” link. You should see something like this.</p>
<p>Financial Aid Statistics
* Full-time freshman enrollment: 1,362
* Number who applied for need-based aid: 794
* Number who were judged to have need: 523
* Number who were offered aid: 519
* Number who had full need met: Not reported</p>
<pre><code>* Average percent of need met: 71%
- Average financial aid package: $17,312
- Average need-based loan: $3,933
- Average need-based scholarship or grant award: $11,331
- Average non-need based aid: $5,323
- Average indebtedness at graduation: $27,163
</code></pre>
<p>“Average percent of need met” is very important. The closer to 100% the better. The breakdown between grant and loan gives you some idea of how the fin aid is packaged. Grant is better; loan is worse.</p>
<p>Hopes this help you to get started.</p>
<p>Thank you so much. I have also heard about problems with financial aid when applying for ED. I am currently thinking of applying ED for Johns Hopkins, but I don’t want to be locked into a binding contract when I can’t get the fin aid I need. Do ED applicants get less of a fin aid than RD?</p>
<p>If you need a serious amount of financial aid, it is better to apply EA, Rolling Admissions, or RD so that you can compare all of the packages side by side in April.</p>
<p>ED applicants at schools that meet full need presumably get the same packages. HOWEVER, Johns Hopkins does NOT guarantee to meet the full need of all of its accepted students.</p>
<p>Supposing you apply ED to Hopkins and you get accepted. You will get your financial aid package from Hopkins so you will KNOW your bottom line costs there. What you will NOT know is whether the package Hopkins gives you is the least expensive bottom line or not…as you will not have any other financial aid packages for comparison.</p>
<p>Financial aid is based primarily on your parents’ incomes and to some degree their assets. If you have some idea of your parents’ adjusted gross income…and taxes, etc…you can use an online financial aid calculator to get a GUESS of what their family contribution will minimally be.</p>
<p>Johns Hopkins uses both the FAFSA (largely used for awarding federally funded need based aid) and the CSS Profile (used for determination of their institutional need based aid. The FAFSA EFC is not the determining factor in their awarding of their institutional aid which is what you REALLY need if you need substantial financial aid. The federal aid is a drop in the bucket to their over $50K per year cost of attendance. And remember…Hopkins, I don’t believe guarantees to meet full need. Their website says something about “given available funds we try to help students…blah blah blah.”</p>
<p>From the sound of your post, it sounds like you need some significant aid to attend Hopkins…and you are not going to be certain to receive it. I would suggest applying RD.</p>
<p>When I was considering applying ED to JHU, I was told by an aid officer that the JHU financial aid calculator was more or less right as long as your numbers were right, and that if you still could not afford to pay for JHU despite the aid, you could be released from your ED contract. I’m not sure how things currently stand though.</p>
<p>By the way, I did end up applying ED.</p>
<p>Here is JHU’s financial aid calculator: [JHU</a> Possible Aid Estimator](<a href=“Student Financial Support | Johns Hopkins University”>Student Financial Support | Johns Hopkins University)</p>
<p>To give you an idea, when I used it to calculate freshman aid, my family had a total of 100k income with 115k AGI. We have a family of five, and two are going to college (my brother and myself). </p>
<p>Estimate:
14.4k EFC so aid was estimated to be:
35.7k grant
3.5k loan
2.5k work award</p>
<p>Actual:
37.2k grant
3.5k loan
2.5k work award</p>
<p>(I do remember that the estimate award package they gave me after being accepted in December was different than the actual amount they later gave me; the estimate was larger in their “You are accepted” package. But the actual award is listed here)</p>
<p>I used the same calculator to estimate this year’s expenses. My parents’ job situations changed, so total earned income was 79k with total AGI being 77k. Family of five, two going to college. And I made 1.6k on a part-time job. </p>
<p>Estimate:
EFC of 8.1k
Grant: 41.9k
Loan: 3.5k (but keep in mind that there is only a freshman calculator, and I calculated for sophomore year, so 4.5k loan for sophomores, and then 5.5k for juniors/seniors)
Work award: 2.5k</p>
<p>Actual:
36.9k grant
2.5k work award
4.5k loan</p>
<p>Actually, now to think of it, since my financial situation worsened from year to year, and then my dad lost his job entirely, I should have received more money than I had in the first year, so maybe I’ll contact my aid adviser and ask what happened there. </p>
<p>I have all the information on the numbers I used for the calculators saved, so if you want them, you could message me your email and I can email the files to you.</p>