College: It’s A Process
Once you understand college is a process, the next step is to understand how the process relates specifically to your student academically and financially. The first step in the process is to determine the type family that you are in relationship to the college maze. How you do this is by becoming familiar with the formula COA-EFC =NEED.
The COA stands for Cost of Attendance. Every college publishes this cost and it includes 5 categories of expenses. Tuition & Fees, Room & Board, Books, Transportation, & Miscellaneous expenses. The EFC stands for Expected Family Contribution. This is the number that the Dept. Of Education assigns you on how much out-of-pocket expense your family must pay per year for college.
The Need is how much aid your are ELIGIBLE to receive. Just because you are eligible does not mean you will receive the assistance.
We believe the first step for every family regardless of income or assets is to determine your EFC. Why? How can you plan for college if you do not know how much money you need each year, multiplied by the number of years of college you have to pay for? Find this out early. Why wait until the Junior or Senior year of high school to figure this out. Find out early and start saving.
There are 3 types of aid available:
- Need-Based Aid which has to do with income and assets.
- Merit-Based Aid which has nothing to do with income and assets, but deals with ACT/SAT scores, GPA and Class Rank.
- Private-Based Aid where the criteria is set by each specific private organization. It could have a Need-Based and/or Merit-Based criteria, along with possibly needing Letters of Recommendations.
In addition to the 3 types of aid available, there are 4 main sources of where this aid originates. This aid will either come from the Federal Government, State Government, The University themselves, or from a private source. Finally that the aid could be Self-Help aid which could be loans or work-study which you have to work off or pay back at some point and time, or it could Gift-Aid which is scholarships or Grants which is free money that does not have to worked off or paid back.
Deadlines, Deadlines, Deadlines. College is a minefield of deadlines. Some as early as September 1st of the Senior year of college. So you need to go through the college selection process to determine what you want to do and where you want to go. You need to get your grades up improve your ACT score, pick the right schools who will give you money for your need and your merit credentials, fill out and meet all the deadlines for admissions and financial aid, accept the aid package at the college of your choice and oh by the way figure out how to pay for your out of pocket expenses without going broke, then you have completed the college process.