The Last Minute Guide to Paying for College

August 12th, 2010 by Ken 2 Comments »

In a little over two weeks College starts up again. I’ve been getting lots of emails and calls from students that are mostly concerned with how they are going to get their bill paid. It can be especially stressful if you are trying to get cleared for moving into the dorms. I’ve put together an easy guide to getting cleared for move in without pulling your hair out.

1. Your financial aid needs to be ready: If you have not yet received any info from your financial aid office by now, you should be concerned. Financial Aid offices package students for funding all throughout the summer. If you have not been packaged for Financial Aid yet it could be for one of the following reasons:

A: You never actually registered for Fall Semester. If so, get registered and inform Financial Aid that you are ready for funding.

B: Your Free application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA) was never processed. Confirm with Financial Aid if they received it.

C: You were selected for Verification, but you did not submit your required paperwork or you submitted it late. Contact Financial Aid to confirm what they need.

D: You are not making Satisfactory Academic Progress and you need to submit an appeal letter to Financial Aid to see if you can still get funded.

E: You still owe a bill from last year. You need to make a payment.

If none of those areas apply to you, then you need to contact your financial aid office ASAP and find out where your funding is. Be advised that financial aid offices are under tremendous strain due to economic factors driving further requests for funding. It just might take a long time for your funding to be processed.

2. A federal Stafford loan is most likely part of your financial aid package: If your school transitioned to Direct Loans this year, you need to complete a new Master Promissory Note with Direct loans.

3. If you still have a bill due after financial aid pays, you need to apply for a Parent Plus loan or a Private loan. There is still time to get an application processed, but you are cutting it close. Do not delay or you could have problems when the semester starts.

4. If you apply for a loan late, it may not be ready for you to get cleared for move in day. If so you can make a partial cash payment to the school through a payment plan (Like Tuition management systems) while your loan is still in processing. When your loan is cleared, just cancel the payment plan and let the loan pay the rest of the bill.

Scrambling to pay a college bill with just two weeks left in the summer is not an easy thing to deal with. If you are having a hard time with the process, let this summer be a lesson. Next year you will need to make sure you get the process started much earlier to avoid the last minute rush.

Tags: appeal letter, asap, direct loans, dorms, economic factors, fall semester, federal stafford loan, federal student aid, financial aid office, financial aid offices, financial aid package, free application for federal student aid, free application for federal student aid fafsa, long time, master promissory note, paperwork, parent plus loan, satisfactory academic progress, transitioned

This entry was posted on Thursday, August 12th, 2010 at 8:25 pm and is filed under Student. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.