Students Finance Blog

Today prices for education increases rather fast and a lot of parents can’t send their children to study at college or university because lack of money. But it is not a reason for despair, because there is Pell Grant.

Pell Grant is an educational federal grant program for people with low incomes and it is not necessary to repay this grant. This grant program was organized in 1960-ies and it was named after U.S. Senator Claiborne Pell.  In general this grant can be given only to poor people in order to give them opportunity to get higher education.

The amount of money which can be received according to this grant depends upon the incomes of the family, the cost of the education and the fact you are full-time student or part-time student. In the 2006-2007 the amount of grant was $4,050. In the 2007-2008 it is $4,310. It is expected that in 2012 the amount of grant will reach $5,400.

In order to get this grant, first of all you should fill the FAFSA (Free Application for Federal Student Aid). You can do it through the Internet on the website fafsa.ed.gov.  But before filling the FAFSA form, you should do the following things: to get your PIN (Personal Identification Number), it is possible to do on the site pin.ed.gov; to prepare certain documents like Social Security card, driver’s license, W-2 form and Federal Income Tax Return from the previous year, untaxed income records from previous year, current bank statement, current information about business and investments. After filling the FAFSA, you will receive the Student Aid Report where you’ll see if you can get Pell Grant or not.

Recently one interesting opinion was published in the campus newspaper of Bowling green State University. It was a students’ offer to increase money management assistance. And this offer presupposes additional help besides the existing help at the financial aid offices.

A long-term employee of this university Duane E. Whitmire claimed that it was necessary to show students how to manage their financial resources. And after such events Bowling Green founded Students Money Management Services which can give students financial counseling. After such actions, a lot of colleges and universities came to conclusion that financial literacy for students is very important and should be taught to them as much as possible.

But it is necessary to understand that such services don’t give financial advising, they give only counseling. At this service you won’t be told to by shares of IBM, because they can bring you profit. You will be told about various possibilities and variants which can be suitable for you.

And such services all the time demonstrate their independence from financial aid offices. As for Bowling Green service, it consists of Whitmire, full-time financial consultant who has experience with students’ affairs, credit cards and other banking peculiarities, graduate assistants and students-volunteers.

Students can come to this service and get personal consultation with financial consultant concerning checkbook, credit cards and loans. These services also organize group sessions dedicated to various financial matters which can be interesting for students.

The prototype of these services was the program which exists in Texas Tech University which is called “Red to Black”. This organization has no paid stuff and is reporting to the Division of Personal Financial Planning. Professor Dorothy Durband teach her students all matters concerning financial planning and then these students share information wit other students. So, this organization also doesn’t give financial advices, because its employees are also students whose specialty is finances and financial management.