<p>If you apply for FAFSA and find out how much financial aid I would receive, do I qualify to receive this at any school, regardless of it's geographic location? Because I want to know what the point of FAFSA is if other schools don't even give you the amount of financial aid that you are eligible for..?</p>
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You will not be eligible for the same aid from every school. </p>
<p>FAFSA does not award you aid. it is just a form you fill out, the results of which are sent to the schools you have selected. The schools determine what aid you are eligible for and award it to you. </p>
<p>Some federal aid will likely be the same at all schools. For instance, if you are eligible for the Pell grant that should be the same everywhere. Some will vary depending on the cost of your school and how much remaining need the school thinks you have. For instance subsidized direct loans require remaining need after the EFC and any other aid or scholarships have been applied. Your remaining need will vary by school. Some need based federal aid is what is called campus based aid. Schools get a very limited amount of money for these programs and determine how best to distribute those dollars. Campus based aid includes SEOG, Work Study Perkins loan. You may get one amount at one school, a different amount at another, nothing at a third. </p>
<p>State based aid will vary by state. And of course institutional aid will vary by school.</p>
<p>The Pell grant is probably the only need based aid I would expect to be exactly the same at every school. And of course Pell is only for very low income students.</p>
<p>*If you apply for FAFSA and find out how much financial aid I would receive, do I qualify to receive this at any school, regardless of it’s geographic location? *</p>
<p>No. </p>
<p>First of all, FAFSA never tells you how much aid you’re going to receive. It just gives you an EFC which is misleading.</p>
<p>Secondly… You’re applying to a lot of OOS publics as a low income student. An OOS public may ONLY give you the small amount of FEDERAL aid that you’re entitled to and NOTHING else ($5550 grant, 5500 loan, and maybe $2k in work study). Obviously, that’ s not nearly enough to pay for a school like Penn State. Schools like PSU don’t even give much to their own instate kids, so they can’t give much at all to OOS kids. </p>
<p>Because I want to know what the point of FAFSA is if other schools don’t even give you the amount of financial aid that you are eligible for…?</p>
<p>FAFSA is for determining FEDERAL AID. Schools don’t have to do ANYTHING with your EFC except to determine if you qualify for any of the (small) aid that the Federal gov’t provides. </p>
<p>Just because you have a low EFC does not mean that an OOS school (or ANY school) has to give you its precious aid money. An OOS public is supposed to educate its instate students (whose costs are MUCH lower)…and most OOS publics can’t even meet their instate students’ needs. </p>
<p>Publics charge high OOS rates for a reason. It wouldn’t make much sense to then cover those high costs by giving away a bunch of need-based aid.</p>
<p>FAFSA is about federal aid. EFC is a federal number. The feds cannot demand that schools use that number and give lots of aid. That would be ridiculous since most schools don’t have much aid to give.</p>
<p>You have to find your own financial aid, other than the federal loans and grants. Check out the financial aid at each of the schools you are considering to see what their requirements are for merit and need-based aid. You may want to consider schools based on what aid they provide, and apply to some you hadn’t thought of.</p>
<p>I see elsewhere that you are considering becoming a PA. Look at the schools in Pennsylvania, which has more PA programs than any other state. Some of the ones that offer the 3+2 programs provide very generous aid for undergrads, and additional aid for the professional phase.</p>