A financial aid package often includes work-study as one component. Typically the package includes a dollar sum of work-study income to be used for education costs.

The College Board’s annual Trends in College Pricing report came out recently and as always, includes some fascinating data.

Outside scholarships are those that come from someone other than the federal government or your school. Examples include National Merit Scholarships, scholarships from you or your parents’ employers, or from other civic institutions.

With standardized test season in full swing, let’s talk briefly about superscoring. (Why, on a paying for college blog, are we talking about standardized tests? Because they’re one of the best tools for earning merit aid.)

Refresher post on the three aid formulas: 1. Federal methodology (FM), based on the FAFSA; 2. Institutional Methodology (IM), based on the CSS PROFILE; and 3. Consensus Methodology (CM), which uses both aid forms. Each aid formula has a different way of calculating a family’s financial strength with respect to ability to pay for college.

Generally you are better off waiting to take the SAT until you’ve done enough test preparation to do the absolutely best you can. That’s because by the time junior or senior year rolls around, it can be tough to change your GPA by much, but even a little prep can make a big difference in test scores.