It’s a rare college student who does not have to assume student loans. If student loan debt is in your future, now is the time to educate yourself on your rights and responsibilities. New changes to the student loan program make it necessary for student loan borrowers to educate themselves on their rights and responsibilities. New student loan borrowers are required by the Department of Education to complete a rights and responsibilities tutorial aptly named Entrance Counseling. This counseling used to be done en masse on campuses to incoming students but is now easily accessed via the internet and can be accomplished at the borrower’s convenience from and computer with internet capability. Since this tutorial is required of all borrowers we’ll concentrate our attention in th...

An expert from Kaplan was featured on the Today show discussing various ways to prepare for college costs. He highlighted some issues that we have discussed in previous “news” articles on FinancialAidFinder. This is a very tumultuous time for financial aid as budget cuts have reduced federal aid by $41 billion dollars while the cost of tuition continues to rise. We have compiled some of the important tips and issues that we have discussed over the past couple of months that are pertinent to the issues that the Today show highlighted. Start a College Savings Account for Your Child ASAP: If you have just had a baby or plan to have one very soon here are a few thoughts you might want to consider. Even if your child is older these ideas should help you plan for your childR...

February 18, 2006 A common question students have is how they can manage their debt and their financial aid. Unfortunately when you fill out the FAFSA form there is no place to put down the amount of debt you owe. The form basically wants to know about your income, your family’s income and assets. Non-traditional students may already have a substantial debt of some kind. It is wise to seek out a way to eliminate or lower this debt before you take on financial aid in the form of loans. Obviously scholarships and grants are still okay since they are gift money and do not need to be repaid. If you can not afford credit counseling there are a number of free resources that you can utilize. A couple you may want to try are the National Foundation for Credit Counseling and Primeric...

You may already be overwhelmed by undergraduate school loans to the point that you don’t even want to think about graduate school but finding aid for graduate school can be done! How much financial aid will largely depend on what field you are going into. For instance, there are more assistantships and fellowships available to students who are pursuing a post secondary degree in math, engineering and the sciences. There tends to be more Federal and private grants and scholarships offered in these fields as well. But that doesn’t mean there won’t be aid available in other forms for all other fields of academic pursuit. The Assitantship or Fellowship Route: An assistantship is usually offered by academic departments and is basically a swap of teaching for tuition and/or...