College Financial Aid
Disrupter — Wed, 07/06/2011 - 06:32
I'm intending to signup to my local community college to get my basic education out of the way and eventually hopefully finish up a Bachelor's Degree of Computer Sciences.
It took me a long time to decide what I truly wanted to do, and for quite a while it was to create games, but I've had an oppurtunity to take my time to decide that alot of people didn't have - but I also was really really slow at it compared to most people haha.
I know that I won't beable to pay for all of my college with grants and scholarships, but I'd like to minimize as much debt as I possibly can. Anyone have any suggestions on where to find any financial aid assistance? (Besides Pell Grant/Cal Grant.)
I've done plenty of google searches but someone that has any experience that has a few minutes to spare would be greatly appreciated.
A) Get your Fafsa done as
Allikat — Wed, 07/06/2011 - 14:21A) Get your Fafsa done as soon as you can. (http://www.fafsa.ed.gov/index.htm for deadlines and forms to fill out. Getting the parental information was always a pain in the butt. The earlier the better)
B) I used fastweb.com and scholarships.com when I was looking for scholarships for college.
C) Be prepared for a lot of work and essays. Half the time I felt like applying for scholarships was another full time job.
D) http://www.scholarships.com/financial-aid/college-scholarships/scholarships-by-major/computer-science-scholarships/
E) Check with the college themselves. Sometimes they have degree specific scholarships available too or general ed scholarships.
F) Get people to help proof read your work. Nothing worse than no scholarship because you forgot to dot your i's and cross your t's.
A) Check - EFC score of 0 B)
Disrupter — Thu, 07/07/2011 - 03:09A) Check - EFC score of 0
B) Check - Apparently was already signed to Scholarships.com
As for the rest it's a work in progress. I made a terrible mistake thinking I didn't need to work on my grades, I'm going to go into the military and get a free ride on college. I'm set! That didn't go through, I'd of probably been washed out anyways ha. But I made the mistake of trashing my GPA in the process. Got straight a's 1 quarter so the 2nd quarter I could show up once a week and still pass doing minimal work...
So I'm afraid to find out what my overall GPA is that these Scholarships are requesting.
I doubt I'll beable to get a "free ride" through college, so I'm curious about "subsidized" loans. I'm willing to borrow now so I have a future later if necessary but I'd like to avoid it if I can.
Loans
Hayae — Sat, 07/09/2011 - 21:30An additional tibbit; if you take out government subsidized or unsubsidized loans, if you work for a public agency you could have all your loans forgiven within 5 years.
In addition, there's also a repayment plan in which you pay for ten years, and then the rest of your loans are forgiven no matter how much you still owe. This part was added recently by the Obama administration.
There's a fair amount of ways to not have to pay off your entire loan packet, and banks consider education loans to be good loans/credit.
There's a strong possibility
Disrupter — Wed, 07/13/2011 - 15:14There's a strong possibility I won't beable to sign up for classes this year but I'm trying to get my financial aid figured out so at the very least when the time comes I can get that squared away.
I'm having a tough time deciding between going to VVC (Victor Valley Community College) for my basic/general education then moving on to CSU (California State University) for the last two years to finish off a Bachelors Degree. (Leaning on Computer Sciences atm!)
There is also the option of something like Kaplan Univeristy Online, assuming I could still sign up and receive a Cal Grant even though the University isn't technically in California as far as I can tell. I like the idea of being able to take my classes online at home on my own time especially considering I have no transportation atm.
There is the factor that VVC may not have a winter session, due to finance cuts. What that means is that it'll definitely take 3 years, unless I cram on the extra courses to keep up, if that happens again with any consistancy.
What do you guys think? Anyone have any experience with Kaplan University Online?