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By Heidi Taylor

The financial aid office presents a great hurdle to get across for many students.  While most strive to allow you to gain the largest amount you can in order to fund your education, others almost inhibit your chances at remaining within the school.  It is a lengthy process that begins when you first enroll at the university your senior year in high school and must complete the FAFSA in order to determine whether your family qualifies for financial aid.  This qualifying step is very difficult to determine overall and does not take in to account any additional debts or finances the parents must pay for per year.

However, the FAFSA is only the first step in a list of complicated addendum.  Once you determine if you are eligible for financial aid, you must then also apply for scholarship after scholarship.  Many websites now aid in this process, such as Fastweb, but it becomes a continuing disappointment to apply to so many different scholarships and not be awarded one.  Adding to this continued frustration is the knowledge that should you persist in your hunt for scholarships, you feel the need to do so after every year.  If you don’t constantly look for scholarships, you almost feel as if you are throwing away tuition money every year which progressively adds up. 

Some financial aid offices are very helpful in getting the word out when new scholarships come in, while others make the students work to discover new scholarships within the school.  Most students are more compelled to research for scholarships during high school, when they have considerably more time to research items outside of school subjects as well as time to write essays for each scholarship.  However, you should always be on the lookout for scholarships that come your way, in order to ease the burden of loan payments on yourself or your parents later on in life.  Most scholarships simply require a short essay, and some do not even require that much.  When you are thinking about your future and the next decades of your life, this stress will be much alleviated by the prospect of smaller loan repayments due to scholarships. 

Loans are another area in which the financial aid office deals with.  Loans come in all shapes and sizes, and while federal loans and grants do have limitations, most private loans do not, although be wary of high interest rates which accompany private loans.  Your accrued debt could end up becoming twice as much as the amount you took out simply because of high interest rates.  On the other hand, having a parent cosign loans electronically helps to decrease the amount of interest owed, which becomes very helpful after you graduate.  Keeping on top of loan deadlines is also important, since most schools have a time period during which they accept payments.

The financial aid office is intended to aid students in ways to finance their education and should be there to offer advice and various ways in which to gain funds.  Whether you receive grants, scholarships, or loans, the purpose of this office is to keep you up to date with these funds, as well as assist you in any way they can to make this confusing process easier, which is why it is important to make frequent visits.

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