paying for college

Financial aid is a generic term - a verbal umbrella that covers the four major sources of aid that are available to help you pay for college:

  • Grants

  • Scholarships

  • Loans

  • Work-study programs

First things first, none of these will be offered to you; you’ll actually have to ask for them. This will require some research and, ultimately, some paperwork. More than half of the students currently attending colleges and universities utilize one or more of these financial aid sources.

A Grant is what everyone hopes for… free money that never has to be paid back. Grants are available on the national level (PELL Grant) and the state level, and they are often available from the academic institution itself. To be eligible for most grants, a candidate must demonstrate a financial need and fulfill certain academic and/or residential requirements. http://www.ed.gov/programs/fpg/index.html (Pell Grant Application)

A Scholarship is another form of free money given by academic institutions and various private organizations to students who have demonstrated excellence in academic as well as non-academic efforts. Scholarships can be either need based or merit based, are often limited to a certain portion of the population, and sometimes even require the student to win some sort of competition in order to win the scholarship.  At Mosaic, we pride ourselves on knowing which colleges offer merit scholarships and each student's likelihood of being offered them.

A Loan is money you receive, usually from the federal government, sometimes by the school. It is expected that you will pay a loan back over time.

Many schools offer Work Study Programs in which students may work to earn money that will be put towards their education. While a student may have the ability to earn the same if not more money in an outside job, the money earned in a work-study situation will automatically be put toward tuition.

310.210.7499     julie [at] mosaicprep [dot] com