Financial Aid 101

Summary: College.gov gives you a basic rundown of financial aid, what it can be used to pay for, and the different options that students have.

Topic: Pell Grants

Category: Institutional (Government)

What is it? web article

Title: Financial Aid 101

Publication info: www.college.gov

Author: None given

Location: www.college.gov, click on “how to pay” link

Accessed: 2/5/09

Support:

Sarah: Kansas State University student

Department of Education

EFC ( Expected Family Contribution)

FAFSA: financial aid provider

Summary:

Sarah was used as a success story of a student who has gotten financial aid and is going to college.  The Department of Education is one place that you can look for student loans at, they give out 80 billion dollars a year in grants, work study, and loans.  EFC is a number that determines how much aid you will recieve.  FAFSA information is given at the end of article, they give a link to the website to apply for a loan at the bottom of the page.

Audience and agenda:

The target audience is obviously students wanting to go to college, and wondering how they will pay for it.  It seemed like the agenda was to give people the basic info about financial aid, and have them make their own decision.  FAFSA was the option that was talked about the most, and there were several links for it also.

Usefulness:

I expected to find more information about what Barack Obama planned to do with higher education on this web page.  The fact that they give a step by step process of searching for college was pretty cool.  I did not like how they stressed getting loans from FAFSA, because that is money that you have to pay back after college.  President has planned to give more money to pay for college in the forms of grants and a tax credit.  That would be free money provided to help students succeed in college.

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