Getting the most money in financial aid for college is strategic and there are several different ways that you can get your student’s education paid for without you having to use up all your life savings, borrowing a lot of money, having them spend hours online searching for scholarships or having to downgrade the family’s lifestyle. rnA lot of families will come to my workshops thinking that there is only one way to get money for college or that there is only way that applies to their personal situation. I’m sure that since my families are constantly working under this wrong assumption that you probably are too.
rnI’ll cover the myths most of my families have about getting the most money in financial aid:
*The best way to get money for college is through private scholarships i.e. Rhodes Scholarship, Gates Millennium or The CocaâCola Scholarshiprn*The best way to get money for college is through playing sports and getting athletic scholarshipsrn*Financial aid is only available for students with amazing gradesrn*Minorities have a better chances of getting financial aid than anyone elsern*The best way to get free money for college is to go to the militaryrn*Only low income families can get free money for college
I’m not going to cover these myths, just know they’re not true.What I am going to do for you is lay out seven of the best strategies to make the most money in financial aid. rnMy name is Trevor Anthony Ramos and I’m an advisor and speaker on getting students into college and figuring out how to pay for it all. And I’ve helped about 1,100 families maximize their financial aid awards. By the way, the families I mentioned have had students from both high school and community college.
rnFirst Strategy: Maximize your Merit-Based Financial AidrnMerit-Based Financial Aid is most commonly given out to your family if your student has a Grade Point Average (GPA) and SAT score higher than the school they are applying to and the school actually gives out Merit-Based Financial Aid. The second part of the sentence is key. What this all means to you is that if your student doesn’t have straight A’s or a 2400 on the SAT, but they still want to get Merit aid, they can’t just be applying to schools that may or may not accept them because the students grades are average or below average in the applicant pool. At some schools the average GPA is between a 3.0-3.4, and if this school actually gives out Merit-based Aid, you’ll get between $2,000-$10,000 every year in financial aid just for going to the school…usually.
rnSecond Strategy: Maximize your Endowment-Based Financial AidrnEndowment aid is usually given to a family if the school really wants the student to go to the school, or really really likes the family. This also includes any special talents that the student for example, the student is a very talented and successful musician, the student has an amazing story, the student is an amazing football player, the student seems that they are bound to be extremely successful in the future, etc. The schools can also give Endowment-based aid because of the parents, rather than the student. If the parent is a very accomplished individual that has a lot of influence over the general public or in a specific organization such as a nearby corporation, the university may give out financial aid to this family to start a relationship which will lead to donations, joint ventures, corporate recruiting, etc. Again the school has to actually have an endowment, so we’re really talking about private schools here. You can get between $5,000-$50,000 every year in financial aid from the university just by making it clear that the university would benefit from having your student go to their school.
rnThird Strategy: Maximize your Need-Based Financial AidrnNeed-based aid is the best way for a family that just cannot afford to pay for college without using up all their savings, tapping into retirement money or borrowing the entire Cost of Attendance through loans. Universities use a formula to determine whether or not you’re eligible for Need-based financial aid, so there’s no actual person at the financial aid office that physically reads through your entire financial situation to determine whether or you need financial aid. The calculator looks at your answers to the questions on the Free Application for Federal Student Aid (or FAFSA) or the CSS Profile and calculates what is called your Need. My workshops cover this topic if great detail and how you can use that calculator to your advantage, so if you’d like to learn more about this topic, you can RSVP up for a workshop. The workshops are totally free and I hold them throughout the year in the Los Angeles Area.
rnFourth Strategy: Maximize your Tax ScholarshipsrnYou want to talk to an advisor or Accountant when you have a change in lifestyle like having your child to go to college. There are tax credits and deductions you can use to reduce your tax liability, just because you now have a student in college.
rnFifth Strategy: Shop your Financial Aid AwardsrnYou want to apply to 6-8 schools that are in competition with each other with their academics programs, national ranking and financial aid awards. For example if you’re student wants to major in International Relations and is a very competitive student. Even if your student really just wants to go to one school for instance Georgetown University, have them apply to George Washington University, American University, John Hopkins University, Tufts, Syracuse and UCSD as well. By doing this, each school will be sure to give you their best offer up front. This leads to our next strategy.
rnSixth Strategy: Ask the School for More MoneyrnMost parents don’t understand that you don’t have to accept your first offer for financial aid from the colleges. You can negotiate. Now, the colleges don’t call it a negotiation, they call it an appeal. Basically what you need to do is write a very convincing letter asking the financial aid office to offer a better financial aid award. The appeal is best used for Need-based Aid, but you can also use an award from another school to try to get a better offer. There is a right way to do this and a wrong way to do this. Make sure you get help on this and don’t sound greedy.
rnSeventh Strategy: Apply for Private ScholarshipsrnI mention private scholarships last for a reason, because the other strategies I mentioned, just work a lot better. A lot of families will spend all their time on private scholarships when it does not really have to best chance of you actually getting more money. Most private scholarships have a 400 to 1 ratio of you actually winning IF your student has a 3.9 GPA, that’s a 0.25% chance of winning. Just so you know your chances of getting into Yale University are about 8.6%. Basically you have a better chance of getting into Yale University than getting a private scholarship. I don’t discourage this strategy because it is a way to get money for college, but I highly suggest this be the last strategy you use. Try Fastweb, local community organizations, organizations your student is a part of, churches, etc.
rnNow, should you be doing all of this? Well, if you want to make the most amount of money in financial aid the answer is “Yes.” However, sometimes only 1 or two of these strategies can pay for your entire college bill. I know all this sounds like a very daunting task, but of course college can cost anywhere between $80,000-$220,000 per student, so you want to make sure you’re prepared to deal with this.
rnIf you’ve learned something in that little bit I wrote you can learn more at one of my workshops. I get into much more detail about how the financial aid system works, what you can do to make sure you’re paying the lowest price for college, and go over what your options are on paying for college.
rnTo discover the business-side behind the admissions and financial aid process the “stuff-behind-the-stuff” sign up to receive (1) a free chapter of Phillip Lew’s College Planning book, (2) a report on which colleges give grants for high income families and (3) a database on where to find the highest quality private scholarships. To instantly receive these free gifts go to
www.totalcollegesolutions.com and watch our 5 minute introductory free video.