Hello everyone, I am so confused right now. I have already completed my FAFSA and in my uni finance dashboard, it said that I have been offered around $35k in funding. My school (UC Berkeley) starts in August 2017 which is two months from now. All in all I am panicking because I need to take out money but I don’t know how from the FAFSA thing.
FAFSA is just a calculator to figure out which loans you qualify to receive.
If you are referring to the Direct student loans (subsidized and unsubsidized), your financial aid dash board from your school should list requirements that you do on-line loan counseling and complete a Master Promissory Note (MPN) for the Direct loans and a separate session of counseling and a separate MPN for the Perkins loan.
The MPNs are the umbrella for the individual loans that will be issued for each semester.
If you are a freshman, you should not be able to borrower $35,000 on your own, so some of what you see may be grants or parent loans you are offered. You need to read it again to see which.
The financial aid department will apply the loans against the cost to attend the school – tuition and fees, housing and meal plans, etc.
Get the letter the Financial Aid office sent to you and add more information to your question here, including what the school says is the Family Contribution amount.
to add – FAFSA information determines eligibility for Pell Grants, and other federal funds, too.
Why do you need loans?
You said this earlier:
<<<my parents="" can="" pay="" the="" tuition,="" room="" and="" board="" upfront="" with="" no="" problem="" whatsoever.="">>>
@kumber123 - what changed?