Financial Aid Archives - Educational Avenues | College Planning | Boarding Schools

Control Your College Costs!

College planning means knowing which strategies will work for you. Control your College Costs instead of college costs controlling you!

Learn the key terms in the college financial aid alphabet soup! For example, the Cost Of Attendance, COA, is like the MSRP (Manufacturer Suggested Retail Price) of a car. Unfortunately, colleges don’t announce the upcoming academic year’s costs until the summer before the student starts, so many parents are paying for college not knowing the sticker price until just a few months before the new academic year.

In a discussion with the Associate Director of Admissions at Boston University, said if parents […]

Control Your College Costs!

Strategic Enrollment Management’s Effect on Students and Parents

Many parents and students don’t know that colleges employ specific strategies to recruit students. They may wonder “Why did I get this amount of financial aid?” or, “Why did one college give a larger scholarship than another?”

There’s a little-known strategy that plays a major role in the amount of scholarship and financial aid that colleges award to families. It’s called “Strategic Enrollment Management” or SEM. This is a powerful tool that colleges use to recruit students. It involves regression analysis to predict enrollment results. It’s like running an experiment and assigning a value to an independent variable and watching the […]

Strategic Enrollment Management’s Effect on Students and Parents

FAFSA: What Families Need to Know This October 1, 2020

Most families with students applying to college have heard of the FAFSA, the Free Application for Federal Student Aid. This is a form you need to complete to obtain financial aid from the federal government. However, not every family knows if they should complete a FAFSA. Even if you think you will not qualify for any aid, it may be in your best interest to file anyway, to make sure that you don’t miss out on scholarships. This article will introduce families to basic principles to know when getting ready to file this application.

Most families with students applying to college […]

FAFSA: What Families Need to Know This October 1, 2020

What First Year College Students Can Expect

Is it possible to be both excited and worried at the same time? The pandemic is not dampening the enthusiasm of first year college students, many of whom are chomping at the bit to set foot on campus. At the College of Charleston classes have already started online. Students can continue to learn remotely or move into the dorm rooms as soon as the campus officially opens, sometime after Labor Day.

Colleges have been delaying opening the physical campus for good reasons: Covid-19 is spreading. The Chronicle of Higher Education reports that The University of North Carolina-State, shut down housing just […]

What First Year College Students Can Expect

College Admissions during COVID pandemic

Colleges have been delaying opening the physical campus for good reasons: Covid-19 is spreading. The Chronicle of Higher Education reports that The University of North Carolina-State, shut down housing just after a few weeks, and the list of colleges postponing plans for reopening grows. Students and parents can only keep watch for updates with bated breath. In this era of uncertainty, they must become comfortable with the unknown.

Parents are asking if they will receive some refunds on the room and board moneys when students are sent back home. Some colleges are pro-rating the portion toward the following semester. College administrators […]

College Admissions during COVID pandemic

Effects of the CARES Act on Families and Student Borrowers

Who are the young winners and losers in the $2 trillion stimulus package, called the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security (CARES) Act, passed on March 27, 2020?

The winners

Parents with children under the age of 17 who claimed their children as dependents on their latest tax return. They received $500 per child, in addition to the $2,400 for married couples with less than $150,000 adjusted gross income (AGI) or $1,200 for singles making less than $75,000 AGI.

The losers

Parents with children over 17 years of age. Young adults, ages 17 to […]

Effects of the CARES Act on Families and Student Borrowers

The One Trillion Dollar Student Loan Debt Debate

As the search for a solution to the one trillion dollar of student loan debt rages on, let’s not forget that this trillion is still in repayment: people are still making monthly payments on their student loans. The government and taxpayer are likely not going to lose all of this trillion. Most of the borrowers are repaying this debt. We may not recoup the entire trillion but more than likely we won’t have one trillion in defaulted loans. I’m writing this in reference to this article: http://www.mainstreet.com/article/moneyinvesting/education-planning/why-african-americans-were-denied-parent-plus-loans-colleg

It does not mean that an entire trillion is lost. The majority of borrowers are in repayment […]

The One Trillion Dollar Student Loan Debt Debate

The Truth about the $1Trillion Student Loan Debt

I felt compelled to reply to this editorial claiming the taxpayer is bailing out students with loans in the August 11, 2013 in the Wall Street Journal: The Rolling Student Loan Bailout

The trillion dollar student loan debt results from the cumulative borrowing over the last few decades. Let’s not confuse political administrations with facts. The genesis of this problem pre-dates the current administration. Consider that students don’t have to start paying their undergraduate Stafford loans until six months after they graduate or leave college. In most situations undergraduate students can’t borrow but a fraction of the costs through Stafford loans. […]

The Truth about the $1Trillion Student Loan Debt

Congress Approves Lower Student Loan Rates!

They said it could not be done! However, we finally have a decision from Congress on the student loan rates that will apply to college borrowers! Many college students and their parents borrow each year in order to pay for college but the loan terms were in limbo. Federal student loans rates are usually set by June 30^th. However, this year, they were hung up in both the Senate and Congress due to bipartisan disagreement. Earlier in July the House passed a bill that set interest rates at 6.8% plus fees for both subsidized and unsubsidized loans and 7.9% for […]

Congress Approves Lower Student Loan Rates!