Federal Need Based College Grants

Federal Need Based College Grants

Presently there are currently 9 government sponsored college or university grant programs offered in America, and over six hundred state financed programs. This report is going to briefly talk about the three most favored federal subsidized programs using need based eligibility. Federal merit based grants are going to be addressed in a subsequent article. The course of action with regard to application for the majority of them begins the same way which is to complete the Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA). The FAFSA form needs to be completed on a yearly basis if the college student is going to be trying to get aid for that upcoming year. Grants are generally organized in one of two categories: Need based and merit based. Need based grants are the ones in which the college student will need to meet particular financial shortcomings wherein they might not manage to attend higher education due to lack of funds. Merit based grants are those where the student qualified based on one performance achievement or another. Below are a list of grants in the need based category along with a short description of each.

Need Based Grants:

Pell Grant 

Pell grants are granted based on financial need because they're only accessible to college students whose family household income is $50,000 or less. Although this amount of money seems low, The United States Government distributes millions of dollars every year through the Pell Grant program. Pell grants are given straight to the student's institution and if there is money remaining after tuition, room and board, and expenses are paid out, the student may decide how the rest of the funds are allocated.

Federal Supplemental Educational Opportunity Grant (FSEOG) 

This specific need based grant is much like the Pell Grant with the major variation being that the college the student attends retains the authority to determine how much money will be allocated to the student. Because of this there is often a range in the household family income threshold which determines eligibility for the grant.

Academic Competitiveness Grant (ACG) 

The Academic Competitiveness Grant is based on financial need; but there's an academic performance component to it as well. Students who are eligible for the Pell Grant may also be eligible for the Academic Competitiveness Grant. As in the FSEOG Grant, the university decides the amount of grant money awarded to the student but bases the computation around the student's performance.

All of these grants need the college student to send in the Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA) form that can be done on the U.S. Department of Education's website or by simply printing out the forms and mailing them in. Once the forms have been submitted and reviewed the college student will receive the Student Aid Report (SAR) which enables them to figure out how much they could be eligible for and how much their Expected Family Contributions (EFC) is. Dependent on the details included in the SAR, each school you've expressed an interest in will prepare an award notice, a financial aid package they are willing to provide you in return for gaining you as a student.

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