Applying to college can be a lengthy and complicated process, and applying for financial aid to help pay for school can add to confusion and stress. While students are the applicants, parents typically must be part of the process of figuring out the full cost of a college education and how it will be paid.
College financial aid officers say there are some key questions parents should ask because the answers will help determine whether a particular college is financially right for their child and the family. Knowing a college’s full cost of attendance, completing the correct financial aid forms, weighing the value of living on or off campus, and understanding funds that are available and what that aid will cover are some of the areas parents should probe, financial aid officers say.
Here are 19 important financial aid questions they suggest parents ask a school’s financial aid department during the college admissions process.
1. What is financial aid?
“You’d think it’d be the most basic and fundamental question, and actually financial aid falls into two categories: need-based aid and merit-based aid,” says Shirleyne McDonald, director of financial aid communication and service at American University in Washington, D.C.
Parents should “understand what those two categories entail, how eligibility and qualifications are determined and what it covers,” McDonald adds.
2. When should our child apply for financial aid?
Waiting to apply for financial aid until after receiving admissions offers is the biggest mistake families make, says David Hautanen, Jr., vice president for enrollment management at St. Mary’s College of Maryland. “It just delays the process in terms of families being able to have a vital piece of information as they’re looking at their admission offers and deciding which one is the best fit for their family.”
3. What does financial aid cover?
“Every school is required to come up with a standard cost of attendance,” McDonald says. “The cost of attendance consists of tuition fees and mandatory fees. Those are fees that all students are charged: books, housing, food, transportation and then what they call miscellaneous or personal expenses. Those components make up the cost of attendance. That’s what aid covers.”
4. Is the financial aid, including scholarships, renewable?
Parents should make sure they know the number of years that their child’s program of study generally lasts, experts say, and how long they expect it will take to finish the program — which may depend on course load or other factors such as failing a course or taking a break from school.
Some scholarships are renewable under certain conditions and others are one time only, while government aid usually must be applied for annually and depends on a family’s financial situation.
[Read: An Ultimate Guide to Understanding College Financial Aid.]
5. How does your school handle outside scholarships?
Ask how the school applies scholarships from external sources to a financial aid package, since they may have restricted use, may be applied to reduce loan amounts and can sometimes result in reduction of institutional aid.
Sometimes families submit funds directly to the school and don’t realize that checks from outside scholarships are also made directly to the school, or are made to the school and the student.
“So families want to ask these organizations … what’s the intent of the scholarship?” says Elaine Varas, senior university director of financial aid at the University of Pennsylvania. “Is it applied towards tuition or is it applied towards books?”
6. Is there a standard rule for the different types of financial aid?
Different forms of financial aid have different rules, says Chuck Knepfle, vice president for enrollment management at Portland State University in Oregon. “There are rules on how long you can keep the aid, what you need to keep the aid, and the maximum amount of the aid.”
A student’s financial aid package could include a federal grant, a federal loan, a state grant, a university scholarship, an external scholarship and work-study — and a different set of rules for each.
“So it’s really important to think about each of those components separately and know exactly what a student needs to do to keep or even to apply for if they’re looking for additional aid,” Knepfle says.
7. How does your school manage the financial aid process?
“Does the college or university only require the FAFSA form, or do they also require the CSS Profile form as well? Also, clarify how the information is used in the determination of what they’re eligible for financial aid,” Hautanen advises.
8. How can a student’s academic performance affect financial aid?
The federal Family Education Rights and Privacy Act, commonly called FERPA, prevents disclosing much of the financial aid eligibility information to others — including parents — once a student enrolls, McDonald notes.
“Understand those limitations and then know how to obtain a waiver of that limitation so students can grant permission for parents or whomever they designate to gain access to that type of information, and university administrators can share information regarding a student’s financial aid eligibility.”
9. Is student loan debt a bad thing?
Many students decide against attending college because they and their families fear loan debt, Knepfle says.
“It’s not bad debt,” he says. “It’s not credit card debt. It’s not even a car loan. You can take out a $30,000 loan or a $20,000 loan to buy a car, which may not be there in 10 years. Your education always will be. It’s more like a mortgage, and families need to think about that.”
10. What’s the difference between private and federal loans?
The Federal Student Aid website compares federal student and parent loans against private student loans. The loans usually differ in various ways, including their interest rates, postponement options and repayment penalties.
“We often refer our families to take a look and to have a good understanding between the two,” McDonald says. “What are the benefits and what are the pitfalls that families need to be aware of?”
[Read: How to Pay for College Using These Overlooked Strategies.]
11. What’s the school’s approach to packaging loans versus grants?
If a school has a no-loan program, meaning it creates financial aid packages that avoid loans, Varas advises families to ask about income requirements. A grant is money that doesn’t have to be paid back, but loans must be repaid.
“You want to be prepared for what out-of-pocket expenses you may have, versus what loan expenses you may have so that you can prepare for the overall cost,” Varas says. “In terms of the overall cost, that’s something that should be on all schools’ websites. That will tell you what the costs are. Tuition, fees, books, supplies, room and board. After that, then we will need to suggest that families look at the net price calculator.”
A net price calculator, which all colleges are required to post on their website, is a tool that adds up the total cost of a school’s fees with financial assistance included. “It allows families to try and address what is the potential cost based on the information from the family,” Varas says.
12. How can families afford or budget a year of college?
Many parents don’t have the funds to pay up front each year the family’s out-of-pocket share of tuition.
Knepfle suggests a three-part budget: what they can pay up front, what they can afford to pay each month in installments and how much they need to borrow.
“If you think about it that way, it can become a little less overwhelming,” Knepfle says. “Instead of looking at a $9,000 bill, you’re looking at $300 per month and then some loan at the end.”
13. Are there financial aid deadlines for each semester?
Yes, and there may be varying state and school deadlines in addition to federal.
College financial aid offices typically have calendars that indicate student deadlines for submitting needed paperwork throughout the year, says Bridgette J. Ingram, director of student financial assistance at Texas A&M University College Station. She advises filing the FAFSA, or Free Application for Federal Student Aid, as soon as possible when it opens each year.
14. Do students save money when they live on campus compared to off campus?
There are savings benefits for students who live on campus, says Mike Collins, director of financial aid at Case Western Reserve University in Ohio.
“We get lots of families who don’t understand that some schools will provide additional funding for students to live on campus and some schools will not, depending upon how that’s set up for the school,” he says. “It may be cheaper for students overall to be on campus.”
Parents should help students do their research to compare the costs for a specific school and its town of living on vs. off campus.
15. Is there any additional financial aid available?
It’s intuitive for institutions to offer funding that helps make education affordable for families, McDonald says, so families should not be afraid to check for additional aid if they feel their expected contribution is still too pricey.
“It never hurts to ask first, first of all,” she says, “but there should be an understanding that if circumstances haven’t changed, that most institutions will do their their best to try to award funding to meet the family’s financial need that takes into account meritorious academic performance or some other artistic or scholastic ability.”
[READ: Look for These Red Flags in a College’s Finances]
16. How could my child’s scholarships and financial aid offer change after the first year?
Some schools “may sort of offer a sort of flat financial aid award that is guaranteed for four years,” Hautanen says. “Other schools may kind of relook at the financial aid award and change (it), depending on how the family’s financial aid circumstances change each year.”
17. When is the right time to ask about the status of a FAFSA application for starting college the spring term?
Students and their parents should ask in the prior fall about the status of their FAFSA applications for the spring, Collins recommends.
“The earlier that we as a financial aid staff know what types of questions or issues families are having, the quicker and faster we can respond and try to get information back to the Department of Education and let them know that there are other issues happening with the FAFSA,” he says.
18. What percentage of your graduates will leave school without debt?
Many parents believe that most students graduate college with insurmountable debt, but average student indebtedness has decreased over the last 10 years, McDonald says, adding that most owe less than $30,000 upon graduation.
“You hear these stories with students leaving with hundreds of thousands of dollars in debt. But that’s the outlier. Most students and families will leverage funding that you know in the long run is less than purchasing a vehicle.”
19. Where can families inform themselves about financial aid practices?
The first place to go is the college’s website, Varas advises. Parents can find basic information on the different types of aid and the requirements students must meet to qualify for financial assistance.
“So at least that way, when families decide to call the financial aid office or the admissions office, they’ve already looked at some of the basic information,” she says.
Varas says families tend to seek help around the same time, “so there tends to be a long wait when they’re trying to call. So I encourage families to try to get the easy answers first on our website so that when they follow up, they can ask follow-up questions to what they see.”
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19 Questions College Financial Aid Officers Wish Parents Would Ask originally appeared on usnews.com
