Posted July 30th, 2008
by admin
Instead of no-strings-attached free money in the form of grants or scholarships, a growing number of government agencies and charities are offering to repay the educational loans of grad students who agree to take certain jobs, work in certain geographical areas, or commit to low-paying public service careers.
Some of these programs have quite a few hoops to jump through. The public service loan repayment program will pay off your balance only if you consolidate your loans into the income-based repayment plan, earn no more than 150 percent of the poverty line, make 10 years of payments, and work in public service for 10 years. Other loan repayment programs, however, require only a few years of work.
WARNING: Make sure to read the fine print of any loan forgiveness or loan repayment program, since a job change or relocation can mean a big financial penalty.
How to find loan repayment offers:
- Call your department head or university financial aid office for advice.
- Check with professional and trade associations in your field. They often maintain lists of loan repayment programs.
- Or you can start with this list of some of the most popular loan repayment
Source : US News.
Posted in Uncategorized
Posted July 27th, 2008
by admin
The competition to get into the top graduate programs is so fierce—especially for the professional schools such as law, business, and medicine—that many students assume universities don’t give away scholarships to lure candidates.
Wrong!
The reality is that even highly ranked grad schools are themselves competing fiercely for the best applicants. Don’t believe us? Listen to Karen Klomperans, dean of Michigan State University’s well-ranked graduate business school: “We want to attract the best M.B.A. students, and there is a lot of competition among the top 30 institutions for those students.”
Here are eight tips on how you can use grad schools’ competition to improve your financial aid packages:
1) Before you apply to any graduate school, realistically evaluate your grades, scores, qualifications, and willingness to move to a distant school. For example, if you’re a C student and can attend only the nearest school, you shouldn’t expect many programs to compete for your matriculation.
2) Search among the schools for which your qualifications are typical of admitted students for at least two you’d like to attend.
3) Search among schools for which your qualifications are at the top of the admitted pool for at least one you’d like to attend.
4) Search for schools you’d like to attend and for which your qualifications make you competitive that have comparatively low tuition and total costs of attendance (including travel and living costs).
5) Apply to a couple of affordable schools, a couple of schools for which you are competitive, and a couple of schools for which you are a catch.
6) Once you’re accepted and get your aid offers, do the math to calculate the net price for each school. That means adding up tuition, fees, room, board, travel, books, etc., and then–from that total–subtracting out the free money for each school.
7) If the net price of the school you prefer seems unaffordably high, figure out what net price you can realistically afford. Many graduate schools don’t offer grants or scholarships because they figure students will make such high incomesafter they graduate that they can easily pay back loans. Use a loan payment calculator to figure out how much your payments might be. Use our career and salary estimators to see if you are likely to be able to pay off your grad school debt.
Before the commitment deadline and before you make any decision, contact the head of the graduate department and politely explain why the school is your first choice but you might not be able to attend because you have more financially attractive alternatives. Be open-minded about the solutions. Grants can be scarce, but an assistantship or tuition discount might get you to the same out-of-pocket cost. Warning: Don’t expect a highly-ranked school to match offers or compete financially with a school ranked much lower. Many schools feel you should pay more for a degree that they believe is more valuable. You’ll have to decide for yourself whether the extra cost is worth the benefit.
If you still need more money, search for other sources of financial aid.
Source : US News
Posted in Uncategorized
Posted July 25th, 2008
by admin
At least half of all American workers get some sort of educational benefit from their jobs. Most employers will pay only for courses that they consider to be work related. But quite a few employers (covering at least 15 percent of American workers) will pay for almost any course. Here’s how to maximize your chances of getting your employer to help pay your tuition:
Check out the details of your employers’ educational benefits before you sign up for a course. Make sure your course qualifies. And find out if there are any grade requirements. Some employers won’t reimburse for low grades.
If your employer doesn’t have a formal employment benefit, write up a request. To encourage employers to help their workers, the federal tax code now allows employers to pay as much as $5,250 a year in tuition for work-related courses. It’s fairly easy for almost any employer to set up an Employer Assistance Program—it takes as little as a one-page document. Best of all, the student doesn’t have to pay taxes on that money.
More on the many education benefit options available from the Journal of Accountancy.
Source : US News.
Posted in Uncategorized
Posted July 23rd, 2008
by admin
Almost all graduate students feel they are financially “needy,” because they don’t earn very much money and are facing big tuition bills. So every grad student should at least fill out the single most important financial aid application, the FAFSA. But students should also be realistic about their chances. Very little financial aid is awarded to graduate students based solely on financial need. Pell grants, which help pay tuition for millions of low-income undergraduates, simply aren’t awarded to graduate students, no matter how broke they are. Many grad schools—especially professional programs—tell students to borrow on the theory that their new degrees will help them get better-paying jobs, so they’ll be able to repay those loans.
Still, some charities, and some schools—mostly big public universities or private schools with big endowments—do award scholarships to the neediest students. Generally, the students with the best chances for need-based aid come from disadvantaged backgrounds. Often, however, scholarship funds are so limited that they go to only the most talented or qualified needy students.
Here’s how to maximize your chances at getting need-based aid:
1) Analyze your own finances. Does your fiancé/fiancée have a good job, some savings, and/or a house? If so, delay the wedding! Many schools consider a spouse’s income when deciding who gets need-based aid.
2) Do your parents have good jobs or a nice home? If so, you’ll want to focus on schools that don’t consider income of the student’s parents. That means focusing on schools that ask only for the Free Application for Federal Student Aid. Schools that ask for additional forms typically expect parents to help pay your graduate school bills.
3) No matter what your financial situation is, you should fill out a FAFSA as soon as possible. Don’t wait to fill out your tax forms first. You can estimate your income now and correct the numbers later. The federal government’s free financial aid application generally asks for financial information only from graduate students and their spouses. It does not require information about the grad student’s parents. Even if the FAFSA doesn’t get you a scholarship, it will qualify you for cheap federal student loans like Staffords, which are capped at 6.8 percent (plus fees).
4) See if any of your target schools or the charities that offer scholarships in your field ask financial aid applicants to fill out the College Board’s CSS Financial Aid Profile. This application asks for financial information about an applicant’s parents and spouse. The College Board charges $25 to send a financial aid application to one school and $16 for every school after that.
5) See if any of your target schools ask financial aid applicants to fill out the Need Access form. This form is free. It also asks for financial information about your parents and spouse.
6) Seek out schools more likely to give need-based aid. That includes schools that require the Profile or the Need Access forms, many public universities with state-funded programs, and private schools with the biggest endowments. U.S. News’s lists of the most generous schools can be found here. A chart of the wealthiest schools can be found here.
7) Call your department head or graduate school financial aid office and ask for help in tracking down other financial aid opportunities.
Try for grants and scholarships awarded for reasons other than pure financial need such as by field of study or by competition.Also, try creating a bidding war over yourself. See if your employer will help pay for your education. Search for other financial aid opportunities.
Source : US News.
Posted in Uncategorized
Posted July 21st, 2008
by admin
The best kind of financial aid is money you don’t have to pay back, typically called scholarships, grants, or fellowships. (Be careful to check the fine print. No matter what name they give it, money that you have to pay back is a loan.)
At least 40 percent of grad students get some free money. They get it by:
1) Creating a bidding war for themselves by applying to several graduate schools, including at least a couple for which their grades, test scores, or other qualifications are above average. Schools are more likely to add a financial lure for applicants who bring up the school’s statistics, rankings, and prestige.
2) Filling out the Free Application for Federal Student Aid and, if their prospective schools ask for it, the CSS/Profile or the Need Access forms to see if they qualify as low-income enough to receive need-based aid.
3) Asking their university department or grad school adviser for help in finding aid.
4) Tracking down and applying to charities and government agencies that fund graduate study in their fields. This is a great option for those in the sciences, education, and languages.
5) Getting their employers to contribute to their education. This is a great option: At least half of all workers receive education benefits from their employers.
6) Even if they don’t get free money, many students lower their out-of-pocket costs by taking advantage of tax benefits, loan repayment programs, jobs, or grad school bargains.
Source : US News.
Posted in Uncategorized
