You’ve taken the SAT or ACT (or both). You’ve researched a list of safety, target, and reach schools. You’ve written what seems like 100 college essays, and nailed down several letters of recommendation. You think you finally have a minute to take a breather, and then you remember: you have to figure out how to pay for all of this!
For most Mongolian students, financial aid is one of the most crucial part of college admission, but the whole financial aid application process can be confusing. What counts as financial aid? Where do you get it? What’s the typical application process like? How much can you get? It’s enough to make your head spin, especially if you don’t have much guidance on the subject.
In this post, I’ll answer all those questions (and more) to start you off on the right foot. Heading off to college should be an exciting new adventure, not a stressful financial burden — this guide will help you get all the financial aid you need to make this upcoming college transition a pleasant one.
College Costs
Every year that you attend school — whether you’re getting a BA, a Master’s, or a professional degree — costs a certain amount of money. The biggest expenses associated with attending college include tuition, room, and board.
If you don’t cover your tuition costs, you won’t be able to register for classes or actually attend school. If you can’t afford living expenses associated with attending school (room, board, other personal expenses), you can’t actually be present on campus to attend classes. Ultimately, all of these costs need to be covered every year or you won’t be able to attend college.
Where Does Financial Aid Come In?
For many students, there will be a difference between what college actually costs and what they can afford to pay. For every year that you anticipate this deficit, you apply for financial aid for your school to cover as much of this cost as you can. In general, this process includes submitting a federal financial aid application.
Your school receives the information from this application and puts together a financial aid package, which could include federal aid and/or school-based aid. Your grants and loans (if you choose to accept them) will be laid out for you in this financial aid offer. You’re then able to make a decision about whether the remaining difference in cost, after taking aid into account, is something that you can afford to pay.
Types of Financial Aid
There are several types of financial aid available
Grants
Grants are lovely little monetary awards that based on your previous academic, sport, and other types of achievements.
Loans
A loan is a sum of money that is given to you when you need it (i.e. when you need to make tuition, room, or board payments) which you pay back after graduation. You also pay back an additional percentage of money, known as interest
Scholarships
Scholarships, like grants, are sums of money that are awarded to you to help pay for school. They’re a bit different from grants and loans in a few important ways. First, they’re not reliable. Most scholarships are very competitive, which means that students shouldn’t expect to be able to pay for the bulk of college expenses with scholarship awards.Second, they have widely varying eligibility criteria, award amounts, and application processes — grants and loans are much more standardized in these respects.
But it is the type of financial aid most Mongolian students take to go into university. So if you dont have an outstanding achievements or enough family contribution, dont worry too much.
You generally don’t have to worry about the financial aid application process until the bulk of your college application work is done. Here, I’ll outline a comprehensive financial aid process in chronological order of applications you should complete — the CSS/Financial Aid Profile is listed first because you might have to complete it while working on some college apps (unfortunately).
Step 1: The CSS/Financial Aid PROFILE
The CSS/Financial Aid PROFILE is an application for nonfederal financial aid used by almost 400 different colleges and scholarship programs.
If you’re applying to any of the participating schools (or scholarships), they’ll have their own deadlines for submitting the PROFILE. It’s very important that you meet this deadline if you want to be considered eligible for institutional financial aid. Some schools may ask for it around the time college apps are due.
Submitting the PROFILE
If you plan on completing the PROFILE, you’ll need to enter detailed student and parent financial information. Gather the following paperwork for both you and your parents to expedite the application process:
- Current and previous years’ tax returns
- Records of current year income
- Records of untaxed income and benefits for current and previous tax years
- Current bank statements
- Records of savings, stocks, bonds, trusts, etc.
There are fees associated with this application — one fee to actually submit it (which includes a single school report), and a $25 fee to generate reports for additional schools. There are fee waivers available for low-income students.
Step 3: The Financial Aid Award Letter
After you’ve been admitted to a college, the school will put together a financial aid award letter — if you noted that you want financial aid, that is. You will not have to accept or reject any offer of admission until you’ve been able to go over a school’s financial aid package. You can use the award amounts to calculate your net cost, or what you have to pay out of pocket to attend that school.
How Much Aid Can You Get?
This is the real question, right? If you’re going to go through all the trouble of applying for financial aid, you want the results to be worth it in the end.
The amount of aid you can get depends on two main factors:
#1: Your financial need, and
#2: Where you go to school
Students with very low family incomes who attend schools with good financial aid programs can get all of their financial need covered — with all grants, no loans. Harvard, for example, expects no family contributions from families who make less than 60k a year, although they still expect students to contribute a small amount via a student job. There are other schools that claim to meet all students’ unmet need.
If you have high financial need but choose a school with a less generous financial aid program, you might be expected to pay a lot out of pocket. So it is super important to consider that school’s average financial aid for international students when doing a college research.
Good Luck you all.