<p>My parents did not go to college, so they really don’t have anything to tell me about. I have no clue about paying for college. If I go to a more selective school with expensive tuition, do I have to pay all the tuition at once? How does Pell Grant work?</p>
<p>Have your parents use the Net Price Calculators on various schools’ websites.</p>
<p>The Financial Aid FAQs thread stickied at the top of this forum is a good place to start. Lot’s of good info there to get you started.</p>
<p>
Federal Student Aid is a very good website from US Dept of Education. It explains various financial aid from Federal government. See [Home</a> | Federal Student Aid](<a href=“http://studentaid.ed.gov/]Home”>http://studentaid.ed.gov/)</p>
<p>Need based financial aid is based on your family’s financial situation - mostly on income but also on assets owned. We have no way of telling what, if any, need based aid you might be eligible for as we don’t know your financial situation. </p>
<p>Pell is for low income families. The maximum Pell is around $5700. To get the maximum requires a 0 EFC (very low income) and as the EFC increases, the Pell eligibility decreases until becoming $0 at an EFC of around 5000.</p>
<p>Just about every state has a website for applying to college and includes information on how financial aid works. The State Council of Higher Education for Virginia has a free 30 page workbook you can download that should explain a lot.</p>