FAQs

No. You can apply for financial aid any time after October 1. To actually receive funds, however, you must be admitted and enrolled at the college.

Yes. Most financial aid offices require that you apply for financial aid every year. If your financial circumstances change, you may get more or less aid. After your first year you will receive a “Renewal Application” which contains preprinted information from the previous year’s FAFSA. Note that your eligibility for financial aid may change significantly, especially if you have a different number of family members in college. Renewal of your financial aid package also depends on your satisfactory academic progress toward a degree, such as earning a minimum number of credits and achieving a minimum GPA.

Submit a FAFSA. To indicate interest in student employment, student loans and parent loans, you should check the appropriate boxes. Checking these boxes does not commit you to accepting these types of aid. You will have the opportunity to accept or decline each part of your aid package later. Leaving these boxes unchecked will not increase the amount of grants you receive.

No. Parents are, however, responsible for the Federal PLUS loans. Parents will only be responsible for your educational loans if they co-sign your loan. In general you and you alone are responsible for repaying your educational loans.

You do not need to get your parents to cosign your federal student loans, even if you are under age 18, as the ‘defense of infancy’ does not apply to federal student loans.

(The defense of infancy presumes that a minor is not able to enter into contracts, and considers any such contract to be void. There is an explicit exemption to this principle in the Higher Education Act with regard to federal student loans.) However, lenders may require a cosigner on private student loans if your credit history is insufficient or if you are underage. In fact, many private student loan programs are not available to students under age 18 because of the defense of infancy.

If your parents (or grandparents) want to help pay off your loan, you can have your billing statements sent to their address. Likewise, if your lender or loan servicer provides an electronic payment service, where the monthly payments are automatically deducted from a bank account, your parents can agree to have the payments deducted from their account. But your parents are under no obligation to repay your loans. If they forget to pay the bill on time or decide to cancel the electronic payment agreement, you will be held responsible for the payments.

Not immediately. The subsidized Stafford loan has a grace period of 6 months before the student must begin repaying the loan. When you take a leave of absence you will not have to repay your loan until the grace period is used up. If you use up the grace period, however, when you graduate you will have to begin repaying your loan immediately. It is possible to request an extension to the grace period, but this must be done before the grace period expires. If your grace period expires in the middle of your leave of absence, you will have to start making payments on your student loans.

Visit the Student Aid Help Center online at http://studentaid.gov/help-center/contact. This link provides the Federal Student Aid Information Center phone number and email along with a live chat function. The FSAIC is run by the US Department of Education and can answer questions about federal student aid programs and applications.

Normally, a minor cannot be held liable for a contract that they sign. However, in 1992 the Higher Education Act was amended to permit eligible students, defined as per Title IV regulations, to sign promissory notes for their own Federal student loans. As such, student loans represent one of the few exceptions to the so-called “defense of infancy”. The specific citation is section 484A(b)(2) of the Higher Education Act of 1965 (20 USC 1091a(b)(2)), and applies to Stafford, PLUS and Consolidation Loans. It does not appear to apply to Perkins and Direct Loans, although it was clearly the intent of Congress that it should.

Several states have also passed similar laws that consider minors to be competent to enter into a contract for an education loan. This extends similar protection to private and non-federal loans. All private education loans require a cosigner when the student is under the age of majority, just to be safe.

No. Only the original FAFSA form produced by the US Department of Education is acceptable. Photocopies, reproductions, facsimiles and electronic versions are all not acceptable. (See DCL GEN-95-21.)

Send in the form as soon as possible after October 1. Do not wait until your taxes are done. Although it is better to do your taxes early, it is acceptable to use estimates of your income, so long as they are not very far off from the actual values. You will have an opportunity to correct any errors later. Criswell college requires a student to submit the FAFSA and application for institutional aid by April 15.

If you have not received a Student Aid Report (SAR), call the Federal Student Aid Information Center at 1-800-4-FED-AID (toll free) or 1-319-337-5665. You must provide them with your Social Security number and date of birth as verification.

Yes. Some states and most private colleges require the asset information in Section G to compute their own financial aid awards. Including this information will not affect your eligibility for federal financial aid (it is disregarded by the Federal Need Analysis Methodology if you qualify for the Simplified Needs Test). Even if none of the schools require the information, you should include it anyway, just in case.

An entire section of FinAid is devoted to the topic of Divorce and Financial Aid. It discusses which parent is responsible for completing the FAFSA, the obligations of non-custodial parents to pay for college, college support agreements, the obligations of step-parents, and the ability of non-custodial parents to take advantage of the various tax benefits for education.

An entire section of FinAid is devoted to the topic of Bankruptcy and Financial Aid. It discusses both whether student loans can be discharged by bankruptcy, as well as the impact of a bankruptcy on eligibility for student aid.

Yes. If you are receiving any kind of financial aid from university or government sources, you must report the scholarship to the financial aid office. Unfortunately, the university will adjust your financial aid package to compensate. Nevertheless, the outside scholarship will have some beneficial effects. At some universities outside scholarships are used to reduce the self-help level. For example, at other colleges and universities the outside scholarship is first applied to reducing the self-help level, and only when the scholarship exceeds self-help does it replace institutional grants. At Criswell College outside scholarships are used to replace loans instead of grants.

Some of them are. Scholarships.com, for example is a member of the BBB, TrustE, NACAC, NSPA, etc., and is a proven, legitimate scholarship search website with dozens of success stories available for you to check out and millions of students assisted over more than a decade of service. However, students should be wary of services that ask for money. They should also stay away from those that claim to do all the work. Most scholarships require students to submit personal information, information that only students will know. Any site that suggests otherwise may be attempting to scam you.

They may. The government takes student awards into consideration when offering aid. However, students should not be deterred by this. The effects are not likely to be great. Many schools use student money to offset loan eligibility, not grant awards. Students who receive little aid can benefit greatly from scholarships.

Yes, but not all of it. Graduate students may be eligible to receive money in the form of loans and Federal Work Study (FWS), but they are not eligible for free government Pell Grants. However, plenty of non-government aid is available for graduates. Myriad scholarship, grant, and fellowship opportunities may be found at Scholarships.com. Searching college financial aid sites should also produce some results.

Yes. However, this should not discourage parents and students from saving. Assuming that students will receive the full amount — many do not — they may still be lacking. It is best to set up an account in a guardian’s name. Less than 6 percent of parent assets are taken into account when determining need. Student assets are weighed more heavily. Parents might want to consider using student money to buy college necessities before submitting their FAFSA.

You have options. Students who did not receive sufficient aid can speak with the financial aid administrators. The financial aid administrator may be willing to help if a students’ financial situation has recently changed (e.g. job loss or new medical bills). Students may also apply for scholarships and grants, year round. As a last resort, students may apply for loans.

Grants and scholarships are free monetary awards: they do not need to be repaid. Grants may be offered without service requirements (e.g., Pell Grants) or with research requirements (this is typically the case with graduate students.) Scholarships are awards that may be awarded based on merit, talent, major, ethnicity etc. They are not restricted to top students. Loans need to be repaid, with interest.

Students can increase their chances of winning by decreasing their competition. Applying for awards restricted to those within a city or major, for example, should help. Scholarships.com will help students find specific scholarships by showing you awards available to you based on your personal profile, a good many of which. It is also important to pay attention to all regulations. Students should only apply for scholarships they are eligible to win and should always remember to proofread their work. Have a question not addressed here? Email the Financial Aid Office.