Financial Aid Help: Where to Find It
Help is available for families struggling to pay for college.
WASHINGTON, Aug. 23, 2009— -- The start of the new school year is just around the corner, but this year tens of thousands of students and their families who are struggling to come up with the money to pay college tuition are asking schools for help.
John Leinberger, a junior at George Mason University, went to the school's financial aid office a week before classes were to start to ask for last-minute funding. His dad recently lost his home-building business and is likely to have to file for bankruptcy.
"The banks are knocking on the door and there's nothing he can do," Leinberger said. "So he has no income coming in and he can't help me out at all with my student loans."
Leinberger isn't the only one who's having to ask for more money from his college in order to stay in school.
Financial aid experts say the best place to start is the financial aid office of your own school, but for help on federal loans and grants check out the Department of Education's Web site.
Financial aid officers at George Mason say there's been a two-fold increase in the number of financial aid appeals they've received this year, compared to last. And it's the same story around the country.
Colleges and universities are seeing record numbers of financial aid applications and thousands of last-minute appeals, leaving schools scrambling to meet the increased demand.
The federal government saw this coming. In the spring, the deputy Secretary of Education sent a letter asking colleges and universities to "reach out to your students ... particularly those who seem to have hit a rough patch, to make sure that they know there may be ways that you can help."
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