I need help with financial aid situation..?

Question

would a student get more financial aid money if they are going to live off campus? Does your housing plans affect how much money a person will get??? I'm going to be a community college student no living at home

Answer 1

Housing plans are usually taken into consideration when your school determines what the maximum amount of financial aid that a student can receive, but unless the cost of living off-campus us much lower (or higher) than living on-campus, your eligibility for financial aid won't decrease (or increase) much either. This is partly because maximum awards for most federal student aid programs (e.g. Pell, Stafford, SEOG, and Perkins) will remain the same regardless of your housing situation.

Essentially, every school sets a "budget" (a.k.a Cost of Attendance or COA) for each of its students. This budget represents the maximum amount of financial aid that each student can receive. Your COA includes educationally-related items like tuition, fees, books, transportation and -- yes -- housing costs. Most schools establish their students' housing budgets by using either their students' average (or actual) on-campus housing costs or the average cost of living for an off-campus student.

If it costs more to live off-campus than to live on-campus, your Financial Aid Office might be able to increase your overall Cost of Attendance/budget so that you can obtain additional financial aid to cover these costs. This *could* increase the overall amount of financial aid that you're eligible for -- but it doesn't necessarily mean that you will be eligible for more of a particular award or type of award. It might simply mean that you can borrow additional loans to cover your increased costs. For example, the maximum Pell Grant for 2006-07 was $4050. This was true for students at $5,000/year school AND for students at $40,000/year schools.