Grants and scholarships are free money that can help you pay for college or any vocational/technical schools:
If you are looking for free money to attend college or any institution of higher education, you must file the FAFSA as early as possible after January 1st of your senior year. If you have been out of high school for a while, you can file your FAFSA after you have applied to college or any institution of higher education. Grants and Scholarships are considered “gift aid” or free money because you don’t have to pay it back. Any kind of grants that you receive is need-based and scholarships are merit-based. There are numerous grants that you can qualify for by filing the FAFSA such as Pell Grants, SEOG (Supplemental Education Opportunity Grants), State Grants, Minority Grants, Disability Grants and Graduate Grants. You will not know if you qualify for these grants unless you file all of the appropriate applications.
Financial aid component is probably the most important piece in the whole college attendance process because this will determine where you will attend school. It all comes down to money. It is extremely important that you file the FAFSA form to see if you qualify for any need-based money available from the Federal and State government. The amount of financial aid that you will receive will depend on many factors such as the size of your family, siblings in college, family’s gross adjusted income, cost of attending a particular institution of higher education, etc.
Why you must file the FAFSA in order to receive any financial aid to help you further your education? Conquering college expenses
Whether you think you will qualify for a need-based financial aid or not, you should apply for financial aid every year that you plan to attend college. There is no cut-off income to qualify for financial aid because it all depends on the factors mentioned above. The institutions of higher education will use your financial profile to award you any of their own money. Even though, scholarships are merit-based, the institutions will most likely use your financial profile to determine how much money they will award to you.
Besides the FAFSA, most private institution of higher education will require that you file the CSS Profile. This financial aid application is an institutional form that will dive deeper into your financial status to determine how much you can afford to pay for your college education. The saving grace here is that these institutions that requires the CSS Profile are usually well endowed and they will usually give you a generous financial aid package if they really want you to be a member of their incoming freshman class.