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Financial Aid For Private Schools
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Article on Financial Aid For Private Schools
The yearly tuition cost at a private school is roughly the same as that at a college or university. However, the burden of private school payments can potentially last for a good fourteen to fifteen years. This is why a private school education is such a formidable prospect for most parents. Parents should keep in mind, though, that financial aid for private schools is available, even though the possible channels are limited.
The First Place to Check: The School
The first place where parents should look for aid are the schools themselves. The financial aid office of any school will be able to give parents all the information. Generally, private schools offer three different kinds of aid – need-based financial aid, merit scholarships and tuition payment plans. However, the amount of aid a school extends under any given circumstance depends completely on its budget, its aid philosophy and how keen it is on enrolling the student in question. So, parents on the look out for financial aid should definitely apply to different private schools.
Need Based Financial Aid
Need based financial aid is a grant extended by a school to cover a certain percentage of the tuition costs of a student. The criteria may completely be need based, or there may be some other eligibility requirements as well, depending on the school in question. For instance, some schools have biases towards certain minority communities. At most private schools, parents will need to fill out the Parents’ Financial Statement (PFS) form, published by the School and Student Services (SSS) division of the National Association of Independent Schools (NAIS). This form is used to calculate the amount that a family can afford to pay towards their child’s education. The aid is then decided accordingly, although it may not cover the entire remainder.
Scholarships
Private schools offer merit-based scholarships as well to reward exceptional academic, athletic or artistic talents in students. Even though this form of financial aid for private schools is not easy to get, parents who think that their children might qualify should enquire about a school’s own scholarships, as well as other external scholarships that a school hosts, or that previous students with similar talents may have won.
Tuition Payment Plans
The other way to save some money or ease the burden of school payments is to check about the tuition payment plans that a school offers. With these, the annual amount is split into nine or ten equal installments, and some plans even allow parents to extend the payment by a year or more. Schools also host tuition payment plans and tuition loans provided by external sources.
External Scholarship Programs
There are some popular national scholarship programs that extend financial aid for private schools too, like the Jack Kent Cooke Foundation Young Scholars Program. Here is one place where all the relevant information is available.
All in all, parents certainly don’t need to feel hopeless about receiving financial aid for private schools. In fact, most private schools want to be seen as institutions that actively promote socio-economic diversity amongst their students. This is good news, especially for minority communities and parents with relatively low incomes.
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