FACTS ABOUT FINANCIAL AIDS |
UNDERSTANDING FINANCIAL AID |
| Grant Aid – cash awards that need not be repaid. Grants help pay for tuition and fees, as well as room, board, travel and other expenses. Financial Aid – grant aid plus other forms of assistance, such as federal subsidized and unsubsidized loans and student work-study jobs. Loans and jobs are known as “self-help.” Parent Contribution – the amount that parents are expected to pay from their own resources for their child’s education. Programs such as the PLUS loan program help parents finance these costs. Family Contribution – includes the parents’ contribution as well as an additional contribution that the student is expected to make from summer earnings. |
| SOURCES: Fact 1: Aid status and incomes self-reported by parents of enrolled students, 2002. Average grant: Average for COFHE institutions of the mean grant awarded to first-year students, survey of COFHE institutions, January 2006. Fact 2: Parent cost: dataset from Catharine Hill, Gordon Winston, Stephanie Boyd, “Affordability: Family Incomes and Net Prices at Highly Selective Private Colleges and Universities,” Williams Project on the Economics of Higher Education, DP-66r (January, 2004). Tuition: the average posted tuition and mandatory fees at the COFHE institutions in academic year 2001-2002. Total cost: based on survey of 19 COFHE institutions in academic year 2001-2002. Percent of students receiving grants: survey of COFHE institutions, February 2005. Fact 3: Survey of COFHE institutions, February 2005. Data are for academic year 2004-2005. |