Worried about funding college?

Here’s six things you may not know about financial aid

It’s unbelievable! Your high school student is preparing for college. It’s an exciting time, but it can also feel a bit overwhelming as you think about paying for higher education. Financial aid positions families to help their students build a professional future. Here’s how to get your mind around it.  

FAFSA basics

Submitting the FAFSA (Free Application for Federal Student Aid) is step one when it comes to college admission. The FAFSA is an application that colleges and universities use to determine your eligibility for federal, state and institutional aid programs including grants and student loans. 

Once your FAFSA has been processed, you will get access to your Student Aid Report. Your Expected Family Contribution (EFC) is an important component of this report. The EFC is an estimate of your family’s financial strength; institutions use it when calculating your financial need and eligibility for aid programs such as the Federal Pell grant and subsidized student loans. 

The EFC is determined through an objective analysis formula developed by the federal government. Schools use the EFC to determine the amount of federal student financial aid for which your student qualifies.  

Avoid sticker shock

Most of us see the prices listed on an institution’s website, multiply that by four and figure we can’t afford it. It’s important to remember that this sticker price is just a starting point. It’s not what families pay. Be sure to factor in grants, scholarships and loans to determine your out-of-pocket costs. 

Dominican’s net price calculator is designed to estimate what types of financial aid you might qualify for and how much support your student may be offered when attending Dominican University full-time. Use this tool to get a better sense of your out-of-pocket cost.

The deal with debt

We don’t want our kids to start their adult life choked by debt. But how do we figure out what is manageable? Understanding your EFC, and using tools like the net price calculator, gives families a sense of what higher education will cost for them. Once you have this information, you can make an informed plan to guide your decision-making.

This often starts with a transparent conversation regarding what is feasible for the family. Once you identify your budget, you can narrow your college search to schools that are within that price point.

At Dominican, we’ve worked hard to provide an outstanding education that our students and their families can afford; in fact, the prestigious U.S. News & World Report ranked Dominican the #1 Best Value in Illinois. 

Students stand to earn 84 percent more, over the course of their career, when they have a college degree than they would earn with a high school diploma alone. Our alumnae/i keep proving that their investment was worth it.

More than loans

Student loans are just one part of a financial aid package. Students can also qualify for grants and scholarships. These awards do not need to be repaid.

There’s a wide variety of scholarships available to Dominican students; 100% of incoming freshman and transfer students receive merit scholarships. Your financial aid counselor can advise about awards for which your student may qualify.  

Work study can be another important part of the financial aid package. On-campus jobs help students to pay some of their educational expenses by earning a paycheck rather than having pay applied directly to tuition bills. Students who have Federal Work Study or Dominican Employment included in their financial aid award package are eligible for campus jobs. Dominican employs hundreds of students, and many of their jobs align with their majors; so, besides the paycheck, these positions offer valuable, resume-building skills.

College savings is a nice-to-have, not a must

If you’re worried that you didn’t save enough for your kid’s college education, you’re not alone. Many families don’t have a college savings account. It’s great if you started a savings plan for your kids when they were born, that’s wonderful. But that’s not something everyone has had the financial opportunity to do.

Having a college fund is nice to have, but if you don’t have that resource, it’s not a deal breaker.  

Remember

The FAFSA requires income information from two years before the filing; for example, if a student aims to start college in the 2023–2024 school year, their parents submit 2021–2022 tax information. If there are any issues on the tax forms that don’t match the FAFSA, those have to get corrected.

It does happen where people file their taxes incorrectly. They may see a tax preparer that did not provide the right guidance on what the appropriate tax filing status is or they may have made a mistake on their own. Incorrect tax filing can become an issue when a student goes to college and the information on the FAFSA doesn’t reconcile with other information provided by the family. Ensure that you are filing your taxes in the appropriate tax filing status to avoid issues in the future.  

There’s less time to do that if the student is already a high school junior or senior. 

If you start in freshman and sophomore year, you can really start to lay the ground work. It’s kind of a low-pressure way to educate yourself. You don’t have to fill anything out. You can start to learn and begin to set a baseline. That way when you start to go into really engaging with that you have a foundation.

For more information on financial aid, explore our guide.