As the weather breaks and graduation approaches, many students begin to sort through financial aid offers.

Not all offers are the same, and Scott Anderson, author of “STOP! Everything You Thought You Knew About Paying For College Is Wrong!” offers three tips for evaluating college awards.

A third party, objective evaluation of the costs for colleges is paramount, Anderson says.

“Some colleges report costs as tuition, room and board. Some colleges will add books and fees. Some colleges will add transportation and personal expenses. It is very important that you are starting with a consistent standard for cost of attendance,” Anderson said.

Visiting Web sites such as collegeboard.com can provide students with a realistic expectation of average costs.

Some award offers include PLUS loans and third party loans. Eliminate these because they are credit based and have little more benefit than a bank loan. They often inflate the appearance of a student’s award, Anderson said.

Finally Anderson recommends computing the real out of pocket costs by subtracting the total student award from the school’s cost of attendance.

“This will tell you how much you can expect to actually see in a bill from the school,” Anderson said.

With this information, a proper appeal can be made to those schools, Anderson said.

Source: news.communitypress.com

This entry was posted on Wednesday, May 31st, 2006 at 6:57 pm and is filed under Education, Financial Aid. Tags: College, Financial Aid, Loans, Student. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.