How to get Financial Aid and Pay for College

For good reason, most families are worried about paying for college. The cost of college has risen significantly over the past few decades, far outpacing normal inflation rates. With that in mind getting college paid for is something that you will have to do, in order to make any offer, the right offer.

Financial aid packages come in during your senior year but getting the maximum amount of money will begin long before then. Know exactly how to get money for college, so that you can make sure you get what you need. Because the right college offer is always one that comes in an affordable package.

How Much does College Cost?

The problem with answering this question is that the listed cost of college is often not what you will end up paying. For a full time student living on campus the Education Data Initiative reports that private colleges on average cost $53,000 and public colleges for in-state students cost $25,500. These numbers are very misleading because almost nobody ever pays those actual numbers. Those numbers are called the “sticker price” and colleges know that they will offer many initiatives to discount that number.

Knowing how much college will actually cost you is about knowing your personal cost of attendance (COA). And that can only be found once you have accounted for all of your financial aid which can come in many different forms.

Different types of Financial Aid

If you are going to be a college athlete, there are different ways that you can get your college paid for without using your own money. Here are the ways that people typically do it.

1. Athletic Scholarships

2. Merit/Academic Scholarships

3. Grants (Need-based money)

4. Student Loans

Athletic Scholarships

Obviously only college athletes qualify for this type of financial aid. But it is important to know how much athletic scholarship is available. Full-Ride athletic scholarships are the most coveted and traditionally cover the entire cost of attendance at a college. But a small percentage of college athletes receive them, less than 2 percent. Most full-rides are given out at the Division 1 level. But making it to D1 does not guarantee you a full-ride alone. Full-rides are given primarily in head-count sports where coaches can give them to an entire roster of athletes. Those sports are D1 FBS Football, D1 Men’s & Women’s Basketball, D1 Women’s Volleyball, D1 Women’s Tennis, & D1 Women’s Gymnastics. It is still possible to get a full-ride in almost any sport, in D1, D2 or NAIA, but it is very rare outside those sports listed because any athlete who gets one will be taking money away from their teammates.

Most athletic scholarships will be partial scholarships. Approximately 36.4 percent reported by the NCAA or about 2 in 5 college athletes receive some form of athletic scholarship, which means the majority of athletes are receiving “partial” scholarship money. A partial scholarship will simply work along with all the other financial aid you receive to make college affordable.

Merit/Academic Scholarships

Contrary to popular belief, there is way more academic money available for college than there is athletic. So your best bet to get a lot of money to pay for school will start with your high school performance. Merit scholarships are sometimes named something else, but they are generally just different forms of academic scholarship. Colleges will examine your total academic performance, essentially how will did you perform both in your school, and against the other applicants they have to determine who gets what and why.

Some colleges will even tell you on their websites that with certain GPA and test scores, you will automatically qualify for a specific academic scholarship amount. Others will reveal the amount you receive in their financial aid package.

Academic scholarship is given out for your performance, and normally requires you to continue performing at a high level as a student in order to keep that money year to year. Some students receive private scholarships that do not come from the college directly. However, it is more common that student receive this money directly from the school.

Coach Rob’s Note: Some merit scholarships are offered for reasons that are not authentically academic, like extracurricular participation. However, you should not look for this to be the primary means of paying for college, since those dollar amounts are normally low in comparison to other forms of aid.

Grants

Colleges know that school is expensive, so grants are given out to help with that. These are need based amounts that different colleges will elect to give based off your families demonstrated financial need. They will use the Free Application for Student Aid (FAFSA) estimate that is calculated for you and your family as a basis for how much they may give you.

Some colleges commit to giving you 100% of what FAFSA says you need, and those college typically don’t worry too much about giving out academic/merit scholarships. But others will not make such a promise. They may give you only a small portion in grant, normally because they don’t feel they have the total amount to give. Either way, grants are money that you don’t have to compete for aside from gaining acceptance to the college. The need based amounts can also change year to year if your family’s financial status does.

Coach Rob’s Note: The best way to know how much money colleges are likely to give you is with my Academic Scope for College Affordability & Selectivity. Create a free account l and learn exactly which schools are likely to accept you, and how much money they are expected to offer you.

Loans

College loans are something that almost every family wants to avoid. But loans are a part of how people pay for college. A loan is a dollar amount given to you either by the federal government, or a private company to help pay for college now. And when you graduate you begin the process of paying it back. College loans are a legitimate help to paying for college but they are dangerous for many students because they do not really know how to make them work out for their benefit.

In general, a loan is a bet that you take out on yourself. You are betting that the value of your degree will outpace your loan, allowing you to pay it back and achieve the standard of living you want. If you view loans as investing in yourself, then you can see why loans get many people in trouble. If you drop out of college, or otherwise fail to graduate, your loan is automatically a bad investment. If you do not graduate in good standing, you will also be struggling to pay it back in all likelihood. But if you do well in school and continue on into the work force then your likelihood of paying it off increases greatly.

I do not personally recommend taking out private loans to pay for college. The interest rates are high, and using private loans is a signifier that the financial aid package you are being offered is just not enough money to make college affordable. Government loans are much more regulated and are offered to students and parents alike.

If the value of your loan amount after four years is less than your projected starting salary in your profession, than I would conclude that it is a manageable loan amount. Law school students traditionally may even take out as much as $100,000 dollars of college loan to get a degree. But they anticipate making more than that in their first jobs as lawyers. This is why the investment in themselves is considered worth it for many. That same logic should also apply to any undergraduate student.

Other ways to pay for college

There are other ways to pay for college that are perhaps not as easy to get, or as sizable. The first is considered to be “work-study” programs. This money will be added into your financial aid package and ask the student to work on campus to get that money.

You can also work while you are in college and pay things off with that money. The issue for student-athletes is that they already have many demands on their time, so working beyond a small part-time job is often challenging to juggle.

There is always an affordable college option available for anyone who is serious about finding it. But remember that no amount of money is worth spending on college if you do not get a degree on the other end of it. Being an amazing student is you r best bet to get money for college, and being a great student while you are in college, will make sure that you get a degree that is actually worth something when it is all over.

Coach Rob’s Note: Don’t go under-recruited! I put in the hard work for you to know exactly which colleges already want to recruit you, which ones will view you as a top recruit, and how to get their attention. Book a meeting with me, Coach Rob, and see how easy it can be to get the offers you deserve!

Coach Rob is a recruiting expert and the Founder of SCA Recruiting. He is also the author of the book Winning the Ship: How to Win the College Athlete Recruitment Game. Available now on Amazon.