Improving your Chances of Free Money for College

States that have been in budget crisis mode for a couple of years now started off taking control back by first cutting our public universities loose in a way that forced them to turn to their students to make up for the shortfall. Now that they realize that bigger tuition fees aren't really enough to fill the holes in their budgets, they're turning to cutting off financial aid. In some cases, they are turning down students whom they have already promised aid to. All of this places families in uncharted waters as far as funding college goes. At this time, states, on average, spend about three-quarters of a billion dollars on aid to needy students in college. That works out on average to an aid package that makes up about 7.5% of your average impoverished student's need for college. If you are thinking that 7.5% doesn't sound like much, several states are considering cutting that down by half. Texas, Illinois, New York - all of them have their own numbers by which to operate. Some states are actually taking back the aid packages they have already granted. Your only hope then would be to find new ways to qualify for free money for college. Here's what puts you in the running for free aid.

If you go by the official last date they publish for when you need to apply for the FAFSA for state aid, it can look like you have until the start of summer, in June. That's not really how it goes in the real world though. States like Tennessee, South Carolina and Oregon announced way back in February that they wanted your FAFSA, ASAP. It's first-come-first-served now until whatever free money for college they have is all disbursed. Families have usually waited until tax filing day to get ready to file their FAFSA. All that is changing now. Just use estimates of your  W-2 and 1099 forms and include your last paystub to it applying as early as possible. Put it off any further and all the money could be gone.

Usually, when you get your financial aid package intimation letter, the first figure you look for is how much free money for college you're getting from the state. State aid is becoming quite difficult to rely on now. They may give it to you or they may change their minds. You probably want to ignore the state aid number you see on your letter. Just look for the college that offers to give you the most help possible with tuition and fees out of its own kitty instead of relying on an outside source such as the government. Times have changed; you can no longer look at your state aid package like it meant something. The colleges' grants are all you have to rely on. If you can't find that kind of free money for college from the institution that you plan to attend, put in a request for work-study. Colleges and the federal government give students opportunities for part-time work. Ask for a community service job and you'll probably get what you ask for.

Is it Sound College Financial Planning anymore to Trust in 529 Plans?

State workers around the country haven't really been having things go their way recently. Their pension plans aren't what they used to be and if they haven't lost their right to organize already, they're about to lose it very soon. Of course, it hasn't been any kind of ideological stand by the government that has led to any of this. Primarily, it is the budget crises in many states that have forced governments to consider moves like this. Those very budget crises however, have other more widespread effects that every family should come to feel sooner or later. For instance, public universities no longer enjoy the kind of funding they once did; and families no longer have access to the kind of aid that they once did, either. The Hope scholarship in Georgia that has been a kind of bottomless barrel of generosity for meritorious students for ages is cutting back; tuition costs in California have risen to unbelievable levels; and in Tennessee, parents can no longer a lock in the tuition they will pay for their children by paying in advance. It might be fair to say that the college financial planning methods that we always thought we knew our way around are due for a change.

In the state of Illinois, families are finding that their 529 college financial planning has gone completely awry. The state hasn't been able to grant them the returns they were promised. And that hasn't even been the most upsetting discovery that these families have made. Up until now, when families invested in prepaid plans to help lock in tuition prices at today's rates they always thought that the lock was completely guaranteed. They have recently been made aware of how should the state somehow not be in a position to meet its obligations, there is nothing anyone can do. If those families always felt that they had a guarantee, it's because they didn't read the fine print that let the state off the hook. South Carolina, Nevada, Pennsylvania and other states, along with Illinois, offer no guarantees. Florida, Washington and Mississippi though, do offer such a guarantee.

If you haven't really seen it happening in your state where the college financial planning that they offer turns out to be underfunded, you could expect it to happen soon. If you have placed your trust in some kind of 529 college financial planning, that isn't a terrible decision to have made, of course. But you do need to set aside some extra money just in case the state doesn't give you all that you were promised.

Creative College Planning that Saves you Money

When people talk about finding a way to send their children to college, usually, they usually only seem to think about taking out a loan and funding college directly for the full four years. Alternative ways that save a lot of money do exist. For instance, college planning can go this way: one can first get two years’ worth of college credits in community college; this can work out to be far cheaper, and one could get a job for more credits. In the end, you can probably save at least $40,000 in college expenses. When you choose a flexible schedule like this, you can usually do your college planning at a fraction of the price other (less creative) people pay.

When a family tries to make a decision about this - that a child should attend community college for the first two years so that the family can save on college expenses, there really is no proper one-stop resource that they can head to for information. You can't just go to community college and bang out two years and hope that it will always save you money. It often won’t. You have to be quite knowledgeable about how the system works. If you end up taking the wrong classes, it could all be in waste. If this is the way you wish to make your way through college, this is how you need to plan for it.

Before you enroll at a community college, you need to know if they have a transfer system that works. Before you actually join, you need to talk to the office to learn how many of their students are known to be successful at an associate’s degree transfer to a regular four-year college. Whatever college you feel you would like to transfer to, you want to speak with the admissions officer there and ask them what rules they have in place to do with accepting transfer students. For instance, how many such students do they accept each year? If you could learn which community colleges they get most of their transfers from, you could target such a community college to join. Doing this, you'll easily come to hear of all the mistakes it is possible for students to make in the process.

Many young people imagine that it can be easy to get whatever course they want at any community college. "It isn't as if one is applying to an Ivy League college, is it?" they tell themselves. Finding a spot in a community college though can be somewhat challenging today. What with how the recession is throwing millions out of work, there is unbelievable pressure on the community colleges to help retrain them. You will really have to be at the head of the line if you wish to get into the community college you prefer.

While it may really save you a lot of money to do your college through a community college, you have to be aware that you can't get a poor grade anywhere. If you fail in an important class, you could end up having to do a whole semester all over again. And that could throw your entire college planning out.