After you get the FAFSA filed (and any other forms your school requires!), you’ll receive notification about your financial aid awards. In an award…letter? Well, not always. More often than not, this notification now comes in the form of an email, which prompts you to log into your school’s website to view your actual awards. And there are a few things you should know before you start to comparison shop.

1.       The number that is most important to you is the out of pocket expense. To find that number, you need to locate the total cost of attendance (which is MORE than just tuition!) at your school, then subtract the financial aid your school is offering. You can find the cost of attendance on UtahFutures if you need to compare several schools at once.

2.       Know your financial aid types. Gift aid doesn’t have to be repaid—it’s free money. Grants and scholarships are gift aid. Work-study aid is basically self-help aid, where you have an on-campus job to help offset the cost of college. And student loans are, well, loans. PLEASE don’t forget this! You will have to repay the money, plus interest, that you borrow in student loans. And even though having an extra $3,000 seems awesome…that money is going to garner you an extra $677 in interest* over the life of the loan. If you borrowed an extra $3,000 in interest every year you’re in school, by the time you graduate with a bachelor’s degree, that’s an extra $12,000 in loans plus $4,572 in interest*. Yikes.

3.       Organization is helpful. If you have applied to several schools, it’s a good idea to have a spreadsheet or at least a piece of paper where you can keep track of a few key numbers. For each school, make sure you know what the cost of attendance is, the gift aid (grants + scholarships offered), the self-help aid (student loans + work-study), and the total out of pocket expenses. Once it’s all laid out in front of you, it’s easy to see which school is the best value for your family.

4.       An apple isn’t always an apple. You know the phrase, “an apples-to-apples comparison?” Sometimes a financial aid “apple” doesn’t always look like the “apples” on other financial aid award letters. For example, if Captain UHEAA applies to three colleges (A, B, and C), he’ll get an award letter from each school. He might be offered a Direct Stafford Loan from all three schools, but A University might label it “Direct Stafford Loan,” B College might call it “Drct Stffrd Ln,” and School of C might say it’s just a “Ln.” The bottom line is, if you aren’t sure about what you’re looking at on the letter, either go in for a visit to the school or give them a call BEFORE you make any decisions.

5.       Accept your awards. After you know what everything on your award letter really is, it’s time to accept the awards you want (like grants and scholarships, because they don’t have to be repaid!), and notify the school. You can always ask for a reduced amount, too. If you are eligible for $3,000 in student loans but you only need $2,000, you can write that into your acceptance form!

If you have more questions, check out this blog by Lynn O’Shaughnessy. She does a great job of explaining how to evaluate your financial aid letters!

*with an interest rate of 6.8% and a standard 10-year repayment plan

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• Arizona – education
• Kansas – science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM)
• Maryland – automotive technology
• Montana – construction
• Utah – health science
• Wisconsin – manufacturing

The grants will be awarded for up to four years. Approximately $1.5 million is available for the first year, while funding for years 2 through 4 is subject to the availability of funds and to a grantee meeting the requirements of its grant award. For more information and grant amounts for the first year, please read the full story here:

I think many people will agree that nobody wants to see tuition raises outpacing inflation, and that it’s an extra difficulty for students who are already feeling the sting of state budget cuts. But until we, as a nation, get that matter resolved (shouldn’t take more than an hour or two, right?), there are some thing you can do in the meantime.

• Start saving. You can open a regular bank savings account, go to your local credit union, or choose a 529 college savings plan like the one offered right here in Utah by UESP. The earlier you can start saving for education, the better off you will be.
• Look for scholarships. Do this early! There are some scholarships that students can win before senior year in high school, and many, many more that can be applied for during a student’s senior year. You can search for many scholarships online at UtahFutures.
• Be prepared to fill out the FAFSA. This single federal form is your ticket to qualifying for grants (which do not have to be repaid), work-study programs, and student loans.
• Communicate. Talk to high school counselors. Talk to college financial aid officers.  Whatever you do, don’t be afraid to ask for help. It can be a really confusing and intimidating process-these people are here to help you make sense of it all.
• Get a job. A part-time job, while perhaps not the first thing many students think of, is a really good idea. If you can work the summer before you go to college and save up money, you’ll probably be able to cover the cost of your textbooks at least! Working up to 20 hours a week during school is an option through work-study programs (don’t forget that you must fill out the FAFSA to qualify for this), and a great way to get hands-on experience.

While it may not make us all happy (I’m sure not thrilled that my tuition for the University of Utah is going up next year), we have a choice to make: pursue education despite the obstacles, or give up. I will be setting aside a little more in savings over the summer to prepare for next year, because I want to finish my degree. What do you want to do?

Instead, the government will expand a direct lending program, a step that the Congressional Budget Office said would save taxpayers $61 billion over 10 years, and use the money to increase Pell grants for students.

The student loan bill is a centerpiece of President Obama’s education agenda, and it was included in the budget reconciliation measure that also made final revisions to the Senate-passed health care bill.

For full story click here

Since it is FAFSA season, here are a few reasons you should fill it out, if you haven’t already.

• The FAFSA is increasingly becoming the benchmark for financial aid. It’s not just used to determine Pell Grants and Stafford loans anymore. Some scholarships (such as Utah’s Jump$tart scholarship) require proof of FAFSA completion as part of the application. Information from the FAFSA is used by schools to award institutional grants and scholarships. Work-study jobs, usually good jobs on campus, are also awarded based on information in the FAFSA.
• It’s easier than it used to be. Recent updates to the online process make the FAFSA filing more streamlined. Gone are the days of the 18-page paper form; now, as you fill out the FAFSA, it automatically adjusts itself to only show you the questions you need to answer.
• First-come, first-serve. In many cases, the earlier you fill out the FAFSA (before your school’s priority deadline is best) the more likely you’ll be able to tap into the pool of money waiting around at your institution.
• If worse comes to worse, pretty much every student in the country can qualify for an unsubsidized Stafford loan. While the government does not pay the interest on these loans while the student is in school (as they do for subsidized Stafford loans, which are awarded on the basis of financial need), they still have a low interest rate and excellent borrower protections and benefits.

Not convinced? You can always use the FAFSA-4Caster to get a close estimate of what the FAFSA might net you. If you’re ready to jump in and fill out the FAFSA, good job and good luck!

The impetus for this project stemmed from observations that humanities PhD programs are considerably longer, and less well-funded, than those in other fields. But an even more basic question is “Why is it taking so long to finish a humanities PhD?” Researchers Ronald G. Ehrenberg, Harriet Zuckerman, Jeffrey A. Groen, and Sharon M. Brucker set out with help from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation to find the answer. And the research, culminating in a book from the Princeton University Press called Educating Scholars: Doctoral Education in the Humanities, shows several interesting findings.

One of these is the importance of full financial aid packages. Many graduate students in the humanities do not work traditional full-time jobs, but rely on teaching assistantships or fellowships, along with grants, scholarships, and student loans, to supply them with funds for tuition and also room, board, and normal living expenses. The research also shows that one of the best uses of money is for summer research: “Financial aid can also be better directed to encourage earlier completion, the book says. It notes, for example, a strong impact from summer grants, which let students finish program requirements, do preliminary work on possible dissertation projects, and avoid the need to earn money in jobs unrelated to their programs” (Jaschik). Utilizing the summer months for productive dissertation preparation can help keep graduates focused and ultimately reduce the time it takes to complete the PhD.

While we are on the topic of financial preparedness, it’s also worth noting that financial literacy materials, although they cover fairly basic principles, should be circulated through the graduate community. Many humanities students borrow heavily from federal lending programs, and repaying the entire cost of living for four or more years places an enormous burden on new graduates—many of whom may not land tenure-track teaching jobs soon, or ever. Having financial literacy materials available may cause some students to think twice before mortgaging their futures in student loan debt, and explore more options for grants, scholarships, and fellowships instead.