8-Step Guide to Paying for College When Your Financial Aid Isn’t Enough

Paying for College
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Getting your financial aid offer is an exciting step in your college journey. However, noticing that there is still a gap to cover can feel a little daunting at first. We recently published a blog post that outlines an 8-step process for building a clear, practical plan to help you move forward.

1. Understand Your “Gap” Number

Confirm your total cost of college and identify the portion that isn’t yet covered, your funding gap.

Colleges provide a Cost of Attendance (COA), which goes beyond tuition. It usually includes housing, meals, books, transportation, and personal expenses. Subtract any scholarships, grants, or other free aid you have received, and the remainder is your net cost, the true amount you need to cover.

Funding gap formula:

Net cost = COA − (grants + scholarships)

2. Ask About a Financial Aid Appeal

If your financial situation has changed, you may be able to request a review of your aid offer. This is often called a financial aid appeal or professional judgment review.

Reach out to your financial aid office and submit a short explanation of your situation along with documentation that supports it. Being clear, specific, and timely can make a difference here. Even small adjustments to your aid package can help reduce your overall gap.

3. Focus on Scholarships and Grants First

Before turning to borrowing, invest time in scholarships and grants. These forms of aid reduce what you will need to repay later, making them a smart first step. Start with trusted resources such as Federal Student Aid and College Board Scholarship Search.

Ascent is proud to offer several scholarship giveaways every month. You can check current scholarship opportunities here.

4. Make Sure You’ve Used All Available Aid

If you haven’t already, completing the FAFSA (Free Application for Federal Student Aid) and any required school or state forms is an important step. Even if you’re unsure whether you’ll qualify for need-based aid, these forms can unlock access to additional resources.

5. Look for Ways to Reduce Your Costs

When you’re working to close a gap, lowering your expenses can be just as impactful as finding new funding.

Small adjustments, such as choosing a different housing option, renting textbooks instead of buying new ones, or selecting a meal plan that better fits your habits, can add up quickly.

6. Consider Income Options While in School

Earning income while in school can reduce how much you need to borrow. Make sure to consider work-study programs, part-time jobs, or internships off-campus.

7. Understand Your Loan Options

After maximizing scholarships, grants, and income, many students still have a funding gap. This is where loans often become necessary.

First, you can consider whether federal or private student loans, or a combination of both, work best for you.

8. Borrow Responsibly and Revisit Your Plan

Borrowing can be a useful tool, but it works best when it’s part of a thoughtful plan.

Keeping your total borrowing as low as possible, understanding your future monthly payment, and checking in on your plan each semester can help you stay on track.

If you’re able to make small payments while in school, even covering interest, it can reduce your total cost over time. And as your situation changes, revisiting your approach ensures it continues to support your goals.

How did you pay for college when your financial aid was not enough? Share with us your experiences in the comments below!

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I’d love to know what is a reasonable amount to borrow. My son is looking at $13K total borrowing (NOT per year but for all of college) which works out to about $150 month. I THINK this is okay (obviously $0 would be better but that isn’t an option). So thoughts on borrowing amounts? His plan for grad school is a research Masters -so hopefully that comes with free tuition and a small stipend.

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As I said on the other loan thread my daughter took the subsidized loans each year ($3500 each year). The subsidy means interest doesn’t start accruing until 6 months after she graduates, so it really is $14k in debt until almost the end of 2026 (a bit less as I think a $1k scholarship was applied her freshman year). With some parental help I estimate it will take under 5 years to pay them off, possibly significantly less. It was totally worth it to us as it helped our cash flow quite a bit.

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I wish you would post this on the “Student loans are never good” thread.

Using debt judiciously is so much smarter than just demonizing loans without any understanding of how some people do their financial planning. Good plan for you!!!

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My kids will be in a similar situation. D22 graduated with about $15k in total debt, and D26/D29 will likely have similar amounts (the latter two probably with additional supplement from a HELOC that I expect to take out at some point, since inflation continues to outpace my income growth). The only way for us to totally eliminate this debt would be for them to attend a school where huge merit would bring the costs below our in-state publics, and those kinds of schools - typically regional or secondary OOS publics in southern states - don’t make sense for these kids. I know there are those here on CC and in real life who would say that the only correct choices in that scenario are either (1) commute to a low-cost junior college near home, or (2) attend Eastern Turnpike Tech where COA would be <$20k; I disagree. You only get one chance to do college, and a good fit is worth paying for, even sacrificing for if necessary.

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I love Eastern Turnpike Tech! I always use University of Genovia because I’m a big Princess Diaries fan, but yours is funnier.

Glad your kids found places that work for all of you!!!

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I did or something similar.

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It’s post #5 on that thread :slight_smile:

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No loans is preferable, of course, but I think limiting loans to the max federal student loan limit is reasonable. I did this when I was in school and graduated with 17,000 in debt in the early 90s. The payment was about $175 per month. My first job after graduation paid $27-$28K and making the payments on that salary was doable, but I lived frugally. After I got my first raise, it was much more comfortable and I didn’t view that amount as a hindrance to my lifestyle. OP is looking at $13K total - I think it’s very reasonable. Good luck.

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The OP is a company that does private college loans.

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Ascent is more than a private student loan company. We proud ourselves with being a student success company. Our goal on College Confidential is to help students and families make educated financial decisions on how to plan, pay, and succeed in school. If you exhausted all other options, student loans can be a helpful tool, but they should be very well considered and you should always borrow responsibly.

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I think student loans should be assessed on student major and pay outcomes. If going to be an engineer vs an arts major the ability to pay back the loans and higher loans will make sense. But it’s just not OK to me when I see taking out $100,000/loans/debt when your projected outcome salary is like $25,000. There are articles about students going to NYU (dream school) only to regret it 15 year’s after graduation, stuck in a rut and can’t afford to their apartment due to excess loans. I believe strongly we must set up our kid’s for success. Not the uncontrolled emotions of picking their “dream “school. Fit, which I think is very important also includes financial literacy and understanding.

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This is a convenient narrative that the media loves.

They also love to ignore the actual facts about student loans. Grad school and post-BA lending represents a large piece of the total, and a key driver of student loan defaults are the for-profit colleges, many now owned by private equity. And these loans ARE pre-professional (these kids aren’t getting BA’s in Renaissance Studies or the other demonized on CC disciplines). They are getting degrees in sports management, travel and tourism, court reporting, forensics. Kids from low income families who exhaust their Pell, max out on their loans, end up with degrees that do NOT lead to “I negotiate contracts for the NFL” or “I’m a medical examiner for the State of Connecticut” as their families had assumed. These predatory for-profit colleges team up with predatory student loan companies and create a perfect storm. I just met a kid with a degree in “business operations” from a for-profit college. I read transcripts for a living and honestly, could not even figure out what the heck the kid had studied in college. But it wasn’t Operations Management, production planning, or any of the other things that a rigorous Operations major would include. And the statistics course (which is usually the most valuable piece of a sub-par business degree) was a “topics in statistics” course where you learn the difference between an average and a median, not an analytically oriented stats course covering regressions, etc.

Everyone loves the NYU barista story, but the actual numbers (who is defaulting, how much do they owe) tell a different one.

And your local orthopedic surgeon has loans many multiples higher than the rare indebted barista from NYU. I’m not sure that the current restriction on grad school loans is the solution here. We are creating a system where only kids from affluent families can go to medical school– is that what we want?

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Totally agree. I am thinking also when asked on CC is it OK to take out certain loans and we all ask can the family afford it. The answer is always or it seems “we will figure it out “. That’s not a strategy for college.

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Not a strategy for anything major, I agree.

But the level of financial illiteracy in this country is staggering. Which explains the people who take out extended warranties on a piece of technology which will be obsolete in 18 months, the people who end up with “negative ROI” annuities, or who pay extra premiums for dental, vision care, etc. where the payout is 85% or so of what they’ve paid.

It’s too time consuming to go through the chart- so they check “yes” on the first day of work and never bother to recalculate.

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The vision plan is the biggest scam - we got it one year but I still had a big out of pocket cost for the glasses (and eye exams were already covered via health insurance). Now I just go to Warby Parker! As to loans, I think some loans can be a good tool - of course, people need to read the fine print and sometimes they don’t. As you said, kids with higher debt tend to accumulate that for grad school - the average undergraduate debt is around $38k which is still less than the cost of the average new car these days (around $40k).

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Great question, @ali-ice, and you’re already thinking about this the right way by looking at the total across all four years rather than just annually.

There’s no magic number as every family and student situation is unique, but there are a few simple benchmarks to help put borrowing in perspective. The most common rule of thumb is to keep total debt at or below a student’s expected starting salary, and to aim for monthly payments around 8–10% of gross income. You’ve already shared that you’re estimating payments of ~$150/month, which translates to roughly $1,800 a year. Those numbers would require an $18,000 salary to stay within the 10% guidline. Nearly any full-time job exceeds that so by those measures alone, $13,000 in student debt looks quite manageable. It’s also worth noting that roughly 50–60% of bachelor’s degree recipients graduate with some student debt. It’s quite normal to have to borrow some to fund a college education and at $13,000 he’s well below the national average of $20K–$40K+ for those who do borrow.

Two things worth thinking about as you plan ahead: What’s the likely starting salary in his field? And does he have grad school on the horizon? You’ve already said yes to graduate school. If he’s hoping for a funded master’s program, keeping undergrad debt low (which you’re doing) is a smart strategy as a back up plan since funding isn’t guaranteed.

Bottom line: $13K total with a ~$150/month payment is likely a manageable level of debt.

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When we signed up for Medicare, we picked a supplemental that included a small amount of vision care “discount” which we just used. DH then got a backup pair of glasses at Costco.

As for student loans, yes, in some cases, they can be beneficial, and as has been noted elsewhere, keeping the amount manageable based on estimated future income is advised.