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Federal Pell Grants

Federal Pell Grants are based on financial need and are awarded only to

undergraduate students who have not yet earned a bachelor’s or profession￾al degree. For many students, Pell Grants provide a foundation of financial

aid to which other aid may be added. For the year 2001–2002, the maximum

award was $3,750.00. You can receive only one Pell Grant in an award year,

and you may not receive Pell Grant funds for more than one school at a

time.

How much you get will depend not only on your Expected Family

Contribution (EFC), but also on your cost of attendance, whether you’re a

full-time or part-time student, and whether you attend school for a full aca￾demic year or less. You can qualify for a Pell Grant even if you are only

enrolled part-time in a training program. You should also be aware that

some private- and school-based sources of financial aid will not consider

your eligibility if you haven’t first applied for a Pell Grant.

Federal Supplemental Educational Opportunity Grants (FSEOG)

Priority consideration for FSEOG funds is given to students receiving Pell

Grants because the FSEOG program is based on exceptional financial need.

An FSEOG is similar to a Pell Grant in that it doesn’t need to be paid back.

If you are eligible, you can receive between $100 and $4,000 a year in

FSEOG funds depending on when you apply, your level of need, and the

funding level of the school you’re attending. The FSEOG differs from the

Pell Grant in that it is not guaranteed that every needy student will receive

one because each school is only allocated a certain amount of FSEOG funds

by the federal government to distribute among all eligible students. To have

the best chances of getting this grant, apply for financial aid as early as you

can after January 1 of the year in which you plan to attend school.

State Grants

State grants are generally specific to the state in which you or which your

parents reside. If you and your parents live in the state in which you will

attend school, you’ve got only one place to check. However, if you will

attend school in another state, or your parents live in another state, be sure

to check your eligibility with your state grant agency. Not all states allow

their state grants to be used at out-of-state schools. There is a list of state

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Financial Aid—Discovering the Possibilities

agencies included in Appendix C with telephone numbers and websites, so

you can easily find out if there is a grant for which you can apply.

Scholarships

Scholarships are often awarded for academic merit or for special character￾istics (for example, ethnic heritage, personal interests, sports, parents’

career, college major, geographic location) rather than financial need. As

with grants, you do not pay your award money back. Scholarships may be

offered from federal, state, school, and private sources.

The best way to find scholarship money is to use one of the free search

tools available on the Internet. After entering the appropriate information

about yourself, a search takes place which ends with a list of those prizes for

which you are eligible. Try www.fastasp.org, which bills itself as the world’s

largest and oldest private sector scholarship database. A couple of other

good sites for conducting searches are www.college-scholarships.com and

www.gripvision.com. If you don’t have easy access to the Internet, or want

to expand your search, your high school guidance counselors or college

financial aid officers also have plenty of information about available scholar￾ship money. Also, check out your local library.

To find private sources of aid, spend a few hours in the library looking at

scholarship and fellowship books or consider a reasonably priced (under

$30) scholarship search service. See the Resources section at the end of this

chapter to find contact information for search services and scholarship book

titles.

Also, contact some or all of the professional associations for the program

you’re interested in attending; some offer scholarships, while others offer

information about where to find scholarships. If you’re currently employed,

find out if your employer has scholarship funds available. If you’re a depend￾ent student, ask your parents and other relatives to check with groups or

organizations they belong to as well as their employers to see if they have

scholarship programs or contests. Investigate these popular sources of

scholarship money:

religious organizations

fraternal organizations

clubs (such as Rotary, Kiwanis, American Legion, Grange, or 4-H)

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