Financial aid; one of the most important things that families look at when considering which college their student is choosing to go to. From the FAFSA application, to grants, to loans, to scholarships, to the endless amount of money they pay towards tuition, it never ends. Families will go through ends meet to get their child to attend a great school to pursue an education. LMU’s tuition is over $62,000, so how is it possible for a family to put out that much money? The answer is simple. It would be financial aid, but the problem is there isn’t enough of it, and people don’t even want to go through the process to apply.
I remember being a senior in high school and looking back to all of the schools I applied, to, I managed to apply to every single one that was over $60,000. My mother always told me, “The price doesn’t matter, but I want you to apply to as many scholarships as you can.” And I did. I applied to everything I found, and I educated myself about financial aid. Since I was the first one to go to college in my immediate family, I felt that I had the responsibility to learn what the FAFSA was, or student loans were. Luckily, I came to understand it, because if I didn’t, I would be like the other 80% of my friends and classmates who have no idea about what financial aid entails.
Fast forward to my freshman year of college where I learned more about financial aid. I then got hired at LMU’s financial aid office, and now I am an expert with anything that has to do with financial aid. I enjoy educating and helping my colleagues out with anything about financial aid because I have gained so much knowledge about it. Some people don’t understand its perks, and it is sad to say that some people get discouraged in applying to college because of the tuition costs. According to Money, “20% of all undergraduate students failed to fill out the financial aid application in 2011-12, according to the U.S. Department of Education, and an unknown but undoubtedly large share of low-income students never enroll in college at all because they believe it is unaffordable.”
Now that I understand what is going on with financial aid and how our government works, it’s sad to see how expensive college is, and how people think they can’t attend because of its costs. The NCAN says, “Of the students who didn’t complete a FAFSA, more than half said they “don’t know anything about financial aid.” The government and schools are more than willing to help a student out if need be, but if families don’t know the process of it, they won’t do anything to pursue it. I hope in the future that there will be more information provided to families to figure out how to apply without being discouraged that they won’t get “any money.” College is expensive, but if you know anything about getting help, you must put yourself out there and do your research.
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