Financial aid guide for students and parents

If you are enrolled for any education loan or want to apply for student scholarship then you must understand important terminologies involved in it. If you want to do financial planning for college then you must understand the meaning of typical expressions associated with the financial planning vehicles. Following list will help you in understand the precise meaning of terms involve in financial planning of college.

• Award letter: It is a document issued by Student Financial Planning Office, which includes all the details about financial aid honored to a candidate.

• Consolidation: It is a loan program which offer borrower facility to integrate different educational loans to form a new loan. By doing consolidation, one can extend the grace period of loan and avail easy monthly installments.

• Grace period: It is a time period between when the borrower leaves college and when he obliged to repay the loans. The grace period of loan is entirely depends upon the type of loan a candidate applies for.

• FAFSA : FAFSA is a Free Application for Federal Student Aid and it is a kind of form created by Congress. It has to be fulfilled by the student during every Academic year to get eligible for financial aid.

• Master Promissory Note: It is a legal agreement a candidate has to sign with a lender while accepting loan amount. MPN includes all the terms and agreements of loan which includes deferment policy conditions, interest rate details and repayment schedule.

• Satisfactory Academic Progress: There are some academic standards set up by Institution and Federal Government. Students have to meet those standards to get avail of financial aid and scholarships.

• Cost of Attendance: It is a cost in the form of fees a student has to bear during his education. Cost of attendance mainly includes books and stationary fees, tuition fees and living as well as hosting expenses.

• Deferment: It is a postponement of loan repayment deadlines, which is formally sanctioned by lender when student sends a formal request. Deferment is approved in most of the cases because of financial trouble or when a student wants to do further study.

• Non Need-Based Financial Aid: It is a kind of financial aid that doesn’t have financial need as only criteria to get eligible.

• Forbearance: It is period of time for which lender approves to defer a principal payment of borrower’s. Forbearance is allowed only on the lender’s discretion when a candidate wants to pay the loan but unable to it because of some crisis.