<p>I'm out of High School and I don't know what I'm going to do. I don't have thousands of dollars. I want to go to Morgan State Univ. in my state (MD) and I need to get a dorm on campus. I have grades and SAT scores well above the requirement. I'm really confused on the whole financial issue. Do I pay all up front? What do I have to pay to get in? Can I pay after I graduate from the college? What do I do?</p>
<p>You will want to go to the financial aid forum with some of your questions. Not sure about your specific college, but typically you apply to the college for admission. You will also probably need to fill out the FAFSA for your college (tells them about your income/your family income and assets so they can determine whether/how much/what type of financial aid to offer you). You should check to see if there are any other scholarships available from the college that require additional application steps that you might be qualified for, and be sure you meet those deadlines. As a general rule, applying early and getting your financial aid info in early is a good thing and increases your chance of aid/grants/scholarships. You also might be offered work/study, which is a way to get a job on campus and get paid for that work (on some campuses it is hard to find a job on or near campus if you do not have work study, on others that is not a problem).</p>
<p>If you are admitted, typically the college will send you a separate packet telling you what their financial aid offer is. You decide whether to accept the various components (be sure you COMPLETELY understand each item – some items will be loans, and some may be grants or scholarships that don’t have to be paid back).</p>
<p>If you decide to attend, you need to send a deposit back to the college to hold your space by a given date. Some colleges also want a housing deposit. That can total several hundred dollars, depending on the school.</p>
<p>Most colleges send their bills for the fall semester in the late summer, and require payment around the time the semester starts (or a bit earlier). You should be able to find something about the billing schedule on the school website. That money is generally due at the beginning of the semester, although colleges sometimes have to wait for scholarshp money to arrive from outside sources (eg, if you got a scholarship from some outside organizations, like Rotary or something). If you qualify for financial aid or scholarships, and decide to accept loans, then the difference between those and your semester bill is what you owe them at that time. Note that the work study dollars don’t come to you until you actually do the work on campus, so you won’t have that at the beginning of the semester (or even by mid-year). Same thing happens in late Nov/early Dec, with a bill for the winter semester arriving then, payment due usually in early January. Note that schools with a trimester program might bill differently.</p>
<p>Don’t forget that in addition to tuition, you have room & board to pay (if you live in campus housing), or your own housing and food expenses if you live off campus. You will have book expenses (can be significant), and usually there are some fees charged by the university that can run to several hundred dollars. The web site for the college usually will describe these, but they vary (meaning, go up) every year. And you may need transportation costs to and from campus, depending on where you live. Plus spending money.</p>
<p>One reason a lot of students apply to more than one college is to compare the cost and financial aid packages so they can make a choice that fits their needs and their budget. Some students go to community college for two years, then transfer (although to be fair, the cost of cc is going up, and in many cities the schools are really full of people retooling in the poor economy).</p>
<p>^^ excellent guidance-nothing I could add to discussion.</p>
<p>~APOL-a Mum</p>