Question: Where and how can we find out how much financial help our family is going to get in order to pay for our child's college education? We can pay only a limited amount of money toward his tuition, and room and board. -- Money Shortage
Answer: Just a few days ago, your high-school senior was able to and should have submitted the Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA) online at fafsa.gov. This application is used to determine the dollar amount a family or student will be expected to contribute toward college. All federal grant and loan awards are determined by the FAFSA, and nearly all colleges use the FAFSA as the basis for their own financial-aid awards.
Unfortunately, you will not learn immediately how much aid to expect. Instead, after your son has been accepted at a college or colleges, each school will calculate the amount of aid and will send him an electronic or paper aid offer. The timing of this offer varies from school to school. It depends on when your son applied and how the school prefers to schedule the awarding of aid.
Fortunately, there is help online at the FAFSA website that will give you general answers about the aid you are likely to receive before you hear from colleges exactly what their aid offer is. It is called the FAFSA4caster. All you have to do is provide some basic information, and 4caster will estimate your son's eligibility for federal student aid. The estimate will be shown in the "College Cost Worksheet," where he also can provide estimated amounts of other student aid and savings that can go toward his college education.
The FAFSA website isn't the only place where you can get information about expected college costs. FinAid's custom calculators at finaid.org can help your family figure out how much school will cost.