Applying for student loans
Student loans have become very popular these days . These loans allow a person in fulfilling all types of requirements related to studies. Some institutions provide student loans for meeting educational expenses while other provides these loans for meeting all related expenses also . For getting a student loan, a person is required to apply for the same through proper channel. While applying for student loans , all necessary requirements have to be fulfilled and necessary documents attached. Applying criteria as well as procedure of student loans differ from one lender to another. Student loans are given by private institutions as well as by government institutions .
Applying for student loan relives concerns of parents and students to some extent when they enter college. Financial aid to students and parents is given either as need based financial aid or as merit based financial aid . In case of need based aid, income of student and his parents are taken into consideration for evaluating the financial circumstances. Apart from this, college or institution where a student intends to study is also considered. In case of merit based aid, loan amount is provided as per the specific qualifications of a student. It can also be provided on basis of SAT scores. It is important to understand here that when a student applies for need based aid, he is actually applying for student loans grants etc . In case of merit based aid, student is applying for scholarships .
In United States, there is one common form that all students are required to fill for applying for student loans . This form is FAFSA or Free Application for Federal Student Aid . When a student fills this form and apply through proper channel, his needs are matched with exact loan programs offered by various lending institutions. Various types of aid provided by means of this form include parent loans, student loans, grants etc. Various types of loans that can be applied in United States include Perkins Loans, Plus Loans for parents Stafford loans etc.
Since first step of applying for student loan consists of filling of FAFSA, a person should be very careful while submitting the same. In recent years, U.S Federal Government has simplified the application process to great extent. A person should gather all the required documents and information before applying for student loans . For applying, it is required that a student should know about his dependency status, school code etc. Similarly, deadline dates for application should be known . After all documents, information etc has been accumulated, a person can fill the FAFSA form. If a person has already applied through FAFSA, he can open his saved application. After filling of necessary information, above form is to be signed electronically by the applicant with PIN. It is very important to understand here that for applying for student loan in United States, a person should be aware of PIN.
After the submission of FAFSA, applicant can check the status of his application and can make necessary corrections to the processed form, if necessary. Even school codes can be added or deleted. Student Aid Report can also be received in an easy manner .
As said above also, a person should be aware about the deadline dates of various forms before applying for the student loan. For example, FAFSA applications should be submitted by midnight of June 30th every year to be considered for student loans.
For getting federal Stafford, Perkins and Direct loans, it is very necessary that a student fills up the FAFSA application . FAFSA form can be filled and submitted online or a person can download the copy of same through internet, print it and send it by mail. A person can also get the hard copy of same from the concerned department .
One aspect that needs to be understood about FAFSA is that it is a challenging form consisting of 5 pages and it is better if a person fills and submits this form after getting some professional help. Remember, whole form has to be filled meticulously for applying for financial aid and there are no user friendly or short versions of FAFSA available. Every year, about 8 million students in U .S fail to file FAFSA due to one reason or the other . Non-filing of FAFSA form eliminates a student from different types of student aid opportunities available. FAFSA deadlines consist of college, state and federal deadlines .
It is not that FAFSA is required for getting federally sponsored programs. In fact, for getting any type of outside financial aid, FAFSA is necessary.
In some cases, a student is not able to fill FAFSA and thus, apply for student in timely manner because of the fact that family income tax returns have not been prepared. Such acts should be avoided as it debars a student from getting financial aid and complete desired course. In present times, many schools are organizing FAFSA workshops for students and parents so that they are able to understand various related aspects and are able to apply for student loan in time.
Similarly, many people think that federal student aid is provided to students belonging to low income families only. This is not true. People with all income groups are eligible to fill FAFSA and apply for the student loan. There are certain programs like Unsubsidized Federal Stafford Loans which offer below market interest rates . Even a person can defer repayments in these loans.
If a person wishes to get a non-federal financial aid in the form of student loan, he should fill the CSS/PROFILE as this form is required by many universities, schools, colleges and other institutions for determining the eligibility of student.
One term that should be understood by a person before applying for student loan is EFC or Expected Family Contribution . EFC helps government in estimating the amount which is easily afforded by the family towards college education for one year. If EFC is low, a person becomes eligible for more financial aid . Actual financial aid figure is arrived at by taking several factors into consideration like number of family members studying, savings of family, current income of family etc.
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