Money Resources

After putting the oldest thru college, and with my youngest being in her sophomore year, I KNOW how important and frustrating money availability can be!

Starting with the FAFSA forms, and continuing thru to financing the second child.  I ran into a firm that wanted to sell a service to complete the forms.  I'm kind of hard headed and I thought $350. was a little much to fill in a form.  If you consider this type of service, read their guarantee.  Sure they may find you over X amount of money, but the consideration is, will they find you over X amount MORE than you could have found with a couple hours research into the system yourself?  I found these forms to be pretty cut and dried.  And I ended up with $350. more to put towards college - PER YEAR!   Be sure to read all of this, as scholarship info is at the bottom.

There are several types of loans available.  Some the student pays after school is finished and some the parents pay.  Usually you will use a combination of the 2.  One little tip that I will pass along here... If the parent has always wanted to get some further education too?  Then, depending on your situation, this may be the very best time to do that.  Check into it both ways.  Sometimes the FAFSA money available is more now than if you wait until your child graduates.  It helped us.  The wife had always wanted to take a couple further courses and because of our situation, it worked in our benefit to have her do it now.

But back to the loans available.  Student loans are available from a myriad of sources.  Usually the guidance office can set you up with an institution they have worked with in the past.  Be sure to consider the terms, but from what we have seen, it is competitive.

Parent loans can be a different story.  Known as PLUS loans, the conditions can differ as to the payback time, when payback starts and what the interest rate is.  This is who we went thru:

We found them to be flexible for each of our daughters situations.  Click on the image to get further details and see if they can help you as well.
 

NOW, better still is a Scholarship.  Money that doesn't have to be paid back!  We found this service to be helpful as well.  The admissions offices don't have ALL the information.  This is a hearty RECOMMEND!