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Connecting Rural Students with College
Paying for College
The initial price of college may seem daunting, but a majority of students often do not pay the full cost of attendance for their school. Here we have provided several resources to help answer your questions about paying for a college degree as well as details on the all important FAFSA (Free Application for Federal Student Aid) which is required for most financial aid awards.
Resources and Information
StudentAid.gov (formerly StudentLoans.gov) is a great starting point for anyone interested in financial support for college.
FinAid breaks down scholarships, work-study, loans and grants and acts as an up-to-date resource for understanding all that goes into college finances.
Know your way around financial aid and just looking for help planning it all out? Edvisors helps put the financial pieces together along with helpful explanations.
The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau hosts this tool for comprehensive coverage of all things finance. Includes not only resources for college finance but tools and plans for repayment as well.
FAFSA
What is the FAFSA?
The Free Application for Federal Student Aid, or FAFSA, is the form that the federal government, states, colleges and other organizations use to award financial aid. Submitting it is your key to accessing grants, scholarships, work-study programs and federal student loans.
Completing the FAFSA is the first step for anyone making college plans. But you should also know what other options are available and how much you can afford to borrow. Everything starts with the FAFSA. Submit the FAFSA each year you’re in college.
Government officials say the new FAFSA will be much easier to complete. Changes include a shorter form, more straightforward questions and tax data automatically populated by the Internal Revenue Service. It will also unlock need-based Pell Grants for more than 610,000 additional students.
The Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA) for the 2024-25 school year will launch by Dec. 31, 2023.
In the meantime, students and families can open an account, look at last year’s, and use the Federal Student Aid Estimator to get an early estimate of what your federal student aid could be after submitting the new form.
Create your StudentAid.gov account—and remember your username and password so you can access and submit the 2024–25 FAFSA form when it’s available.
If your parent(s) or spouse will need to contribute to your form, make sure each contributor creates their own StudentAid.gov account.
Watch “Preparing for the FAFSA Form” to understand what information and documents you’ll need to fill out the FAFSA form.
Listen as college admission professionals discuss financial aid at this year's virtual fair. (Video is ~45 minutes in length.) Click the topics below if you wish to hear more on a specific subject:
Want to learn more about scholarships?
Did you know it may be cheaper to attend a college out of state? Watch the video below to learn more.
Listen as college admission professionals describe the Western Undergraduate Exchange program at this year's virtual fair. (Video is ~30 minutes in length.)
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