Curriculum · College

Paying for
college

Financial aid, loans, and the difference between a sticker price and what a family actually pays — the largest financial decision most students make before they turn twenty.

Almost nobody pays the published price. The number that matters is net cost: tuition, fees, housing, and food, minus grants and scholarships that never have to be repaid. Compare schools on that figure and nothing else.

The vocabulary, precisely

  • Grants and scholarships are gift aid. They are not repaid.
  • Work-study is a subsidised campus job — earned money, not an award.
  • Federal loans come from the government at fixed rates with legal protections.
  • Private loans come from banks, often at variable rates, usually requiring a co-signer.

A "$40,000 award" that is mostly loans is a bill, not a scholarship. Read the composition of every aid letter line by line.

FAFSA and the CSS Profile

The FAFSA is the single federal application for grants, work-study, and federal loans. It opens in the autumn of senior year and it is free — file it even if you assume you will not qualify, because many institutional and state awards require it.

Some private colleges additionally require the CSS Profile, which asks for more detail and is used to allocate the college's own money. Deadlines differ by school and late filing costs real dollars, so track them on a calendar.

Federal before private, always

Subsidised federal loans do not accrue interest while you are enrolled; unsubsidised ones do. Both carry fixed rates, income-driven repayment options, and deferment in hardship. Private loans generally carry none of that.

A rough sanity check used widely by advisers: total borrowing across all four years should stay below your expected first-year salary. Above that, repayment starts to shape which jobs you can afford to take.

How to compare two offers

  1. Write down each school's full cost of attendance, including travel.
  2. Subtract only grants and scholarships to get net cost per year.
  3. Multiply by four, adjusting for likely tuition increases.
  4. List the loans separately, with rates, and total the interest.
  5. Ask each financial aid office whether the award is renewable and what conditions apply.

Appealing is normal. If a family's circumstances changed or a comparable school offered more, write to the aid office and ask for a review in writing.

Next

Loan repayment lands on a first paycheck, so read how taxes work and budgeting, or see the full curriculum.