Like the 529 Plans, the Coverdell Education Savings Account (ESA) is a tax-advantaged college savings plan. Once known as the Education IRA, the Coverdell ESA works very much like the Roth IRA: Your contributions to an investment account are non-deductible but your earnings grow tax-free. Withdrawals are also tax-free when used for qualified higher education [...]
On Monday, I launched a new series on the best ways to save for college. We explored 529 college savings plans, concluding that when you carefully compare fees and state benefits, you can really score with a college savings plan. Today we are looking at the other type of 529 Plan — the prepaid tuition [...]
Last month, we talked about how to figure out how much you need to save for your child’s (or your own) college education. The bottom line was that there is no set formula. Rather, the amount you put away is a factor of how much you can afford, what college (or type of college) you [...]
Are you planning to be a teacher? Do you know about the (relatively) new federal education grants for teachers? If not, you should! The Teacher Education Assistance for College and Higher Education (TEACH) Grant Program was created by Congress in 2007 to provide provides grants of up to $4,000 per year to education students planning [...]
The credit crisis has everyone on edge. If you are planning to take out student loans to help pay for your college education, you, too, may be worrying about how this financial crisis is going to affect you. If your credit rating isn’t all that good, your worry is probably pretty intense. But before you [...]
Lately, I have been fielding a number of questions about the differences between subsidized Stafford Loans and unsubsidized ones. Given how frequently this topic seems to come up, I thought I should post a quick synopsis of my answer here on the blog. Here’s the deal: If you get your financial aid award and it [...]
Welcome to the final part of the Financial Aid Finder’s five-part FAFSA Workshop. If you want to catch up on parts 1-4, follow these links: Essential FAFSA Documents FAFSA PIN Common FAFSA Blunders FAFSA Deadlines Well, we have arrived at the final installment of our FAFSA workshop. For some of you, this may no longer [...]
Happy Friday! It’s scholarship time here at the Financial Aid Finder. For the past several weeks, I’ve been harping on the fact that we are in the middle of scholarship season. What that means for you is that there is an abundance of scholarships out there with deadlines in the next few days or weeks. [...]
