Obtaining financial aid, scholarships, loans, and grants in today’s country can have its challenges! I will provide you with some information about financial aid, scholarships, loans, and grants. First off, financial aid is intended to make up the difference between what your family can afford to pay and what college costs. So you’re not alone! There are reliable people out there who want to help.

The financial aid system is based on the idea that all students should have equal access — that you should be able to attend college, regardless of your financial circumstances. So basically you can have your family pay for college or the government will help you via scholarships, loans, and grants.

The government offers loans. Loans are giving out by the federal government to people in need of money. The government has plans where no interest is accrued until you graduate. (Go to http://www.scholarshipsforwomenguide.org for more information) One tricky underlining detail that the banks don’t put emphasize on is that these student loans are never going to go away! If you file for bankruptcy you will still have to pay off these student loans and interest will still accrue!

Grants are also a wonderful thing to get. Grants happen when the federal government gives you money and you don’t have to pay them back. Sounds great huh, free money! Well I wouldn’t say Grants are not "free money" the government or foundations give out, but they pretty much are and they have lots of money sitting around and so they give the money to certain foundations to pay for who are in need of financial help.

Scholarships are where the college, private businesses, clubs, or anyone who gives you money to go to college and you have to do something in return. Possibly keep a certain GPA every year or maybe work certain amount of hours each semester with a good GPA. Keeping a GPA of at least 3.0 really isn’t that hard at all. You can find many scholarships that have a minimum of at least 3.0 on my website and on your college website. Also talk to your local chamber of commerce because they have scholarships as well.

I have gone through college and jumped through all the hoops so I am going to share my experience. I went to the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, in Lincoln Nebraska for 4 years with a major in Women’s Study and minor in Spanish. They made us live in the dorms for 2 years which are super tiny and way over priced! Somehow I had to afford $2,500 for a semester and $2,100 a semester for room and board. Here I pay $9,200 as a resident per semester for college. That isn’t bad except over 4 years I have to pay $36,800 for college! The only way I could afford it was a bunch of scholarships that paid a total of $31,000. Other than that I took out a $10,000 loan and made about $4,000 a year from working at a Bank as a teller. So by the time I graduated I didn’t have any debt, I had work experience and it’s the best feeling in the world!