I’ve heard that FAFSA gives some money to students for personal expenses aside from tuition,books,room and board. I’d like to know how much do people get on average (if any)?
First, FAFSA is a form (Free Application For…) so forms don’t give you any money. Money comes from the Federal govt, sometimes the state govt and the college itself.
Each college has a Cost of Attendance (COA) listed on the website and that is an estimate of what the cost is for tuition+fees, room+board, books, personal expenses and transportation. Note that your actual costs may be more or less. You are allowed to receive aid up to the COA. But it is not always guaranteed that you will. Most of the time you will not.
Here is an example of costs for one state school, commuting from home
Tuition and Fees $14836
Room and Board $4650
Books and Supplies $1700
Other Expenses $3650
Total Cost of Attendance $24836
and here is the way the school thinks it can be paid (I just happen to have this up
Estimated grant and/or scholarship assistance: $13371
Estimated net cost:
(remaining cost after grants and scholarships) $11465
How you can finance the net cost
Estimated student loans: $5500
Estimated amount that the family may choose to borrow or contribute from savings and/or current earnings: $4879
Total Estimated Resources to meet Costs:
(Total = grants + loan/work + family contribution) $23750
Full cost of attendance, as it is called, includes a small amount for personal expenses. The money you get from the government (based on Fafsa form) and any potential money you get from the school could possibly add up to the entire cost of attendance. But it’s not like they say, “Here is $3,000 for you to spend on personal expenses.” The money you get is fungible. Look up that word.
FAFSA allows you to access Federal financial aid, if you qualified. Federal aid includes grants, loans and work study. See https://studentaid.ed.gov/sa/types.
Grants and loans will base on your FAFSA / SAR / EFC, see https://studentaid.ed.gov/sa/
If your EFC is zero, you may be awarded with Pell Grants (up to $5,775 in 2015-2016) and Direct Loans (up to $5,500). Depending on schools, you may also be awarded with other grants and loans.
Oh, yeah, I forgot to say the COA will vary by school but 1,xxx to 3,xxx is typical. But just because a school has a specified cost of attendance doesn’t mean you will be given that money. Sometimes you are expected to use your own. If you tell more about your situation/college/finances we can give you more personalized info.
How much money is that on average? A couple hundred, eh?
When you complete the FAFSA, you will be eligible to get a Direct Loan. For freshman year, it is $5500 max. You can use this for any costs related to college…including your personal expenses.
Of course…first you need to be sure your tuition, room, board, fees, and books are paid for!
For UC, the budgeted Personal/transportation is $2,400 to $3,100
Just remember that one day you will be paying back the loans you take out (with interest), so don’t take out more that you need.
Consider getting a part time job instead.
I have a full time job, but was wondering how much I could get (if any) from FSaid.
I think some of the answers here may be confusing from the perspective of a (I assume, high school senior) who doesn’t know anything about financial aid.
The answer you’re looking for (or so it seems) is what FAFSA can directly unlock for you. The answer is $5500 in loans (some portion of which may or may not be subsidized – either way, not free money), and up to $5775 in free money if your family is very low income (from something called a Pell Grant). A little more indirectly, some Pell recipients will also receive something referred to as SEOG (google it) from their schools.
So, “best” case scenario, if you’re very low income, and also get lucky with an SEOG participating school (that hasn’t run out of funds) – $9775 maximum.
In reality, you’re probably looking at $5775 of free money at maximum. It’s very probable that you’ll receive nothing but the Direct Loan, depending on how your EFC turns out.
There’s a great myth that runs throughout high schools that perpetuates this idea that the FAFSA is some golden pot of free money to draw from. Very untrue. It’s a form at its core, and sometimes gets you (very limited, if you’re looking at a private school) funds – if you’re lucky.
tl;dr it is likely that you will receive no free money from federal sources
I know it’s not free money. My question is, out of the money that covers tuition,books and maybe room and board, how much could possibly go to personal expense (and if it’s allowed)? I believe it’s nothing based off your response.
Someone else can correct me if I’m wrong, but I believe that if you do receive Pell, you can use it towards anything you want. But, depending on what you use it for, it could be taxable or not (personal expenses would make it taxable). Some schools will apply scholarships etc first to tuition, then room and board, etc, in a priority list – not sure if this is applicable to Pell (someone else should chime in here).
Also, what do you mean by the “out of the money that covers…” statement? Do you already have scholarships or grants that cover specific items in your Cost of Attendance (such as tuition, room and board, etc)? If not, it’s not a good idea to assume that the government, or anyone else, is gonna pay for those things just because those will be expenses incurred. Thus is the importance of choosing an affordable school.
@Texan010 You are looking at the question the wrong way. The financial aid money you get from the federal government is not earmarked for a specific use. It defrays the total cost of college.
Example: Let’s say the total cost of attendance for one year (which includes tuition, room, board, and personal expenses) is $40,000. And let’s say the Fafsa form unlocks (I like that word @CourtneyThurston ) $10,000 in financial aid for you. The $10,000 is applied to the total cost of $40,000. The money is sent to your college. You do not get a check. However, that $10,000 frees up other money—your personal money—for you to spend on personal expenses. Because now you do not have to use your personal $10,000 to pay to the college at this moment.
The only possible circumstance in which your financial aid would hand you a check for personal expenses is if you are getting a “full ride”—which includes money that your college gives you to cover the TOTAL COST OF ATTENDANCE. Some personal expenses are included in total cost of attendance.
Not always. but they try their best. it all depends on your family’s income and circumstances.
The way the FA system works is that all of the FA (Pell, SOEG, student direct loans, institutional grant) is paid directly to your student account at your school. That money is used to pay for items directly billed by he school. Once those items are paid for, any excess will be refunded to you. Those funds can be used for expenses in the COA that are not directly billed by the school. For example, books. Work study funds are paid directly to you in the form of a paycheck as you earn them by working. Others can tell your how Parent Plus loans and private loans work.
Hard to predict what your refund will be. As a rough guide your refund could be: (Student direct loans + grants +scholarships) - direct billed expenses (tuition, fees, student heath insurance cost, room, meal plan, etc). Keep in mind that some part of scholarships and all work study income is taxable so you might need to save part of the refund to pay taxes. Also the money is disbursed by semester/quarter. You do not get it all at once. So if you are on the semester system, you get half for the fall bills and half for the spring bills.
Keep in mind if you get a refund it is could be because you borrow more money then needed. In other words, it is not free money but the remaining funds from a loan that will need to be repaid some day.
Refunds of any excess for my kids were at the end of the academic year.
^Depends on the school. My kid’s school refunded the money about 1-2 days after the billing due date.
You can use financial,aid for personal,expenses…IF you receive more than the billable costs to your college. In other words, the college gets paid FIRST…for all billable costs…tuition, room, board, fees. Only after that would you get a refund.