Financial aid for students
As the name suggests, financial student aids mainly aims at providing the students with adequate funds for the payments of expenses like tuition fees, book and other stationeries, room and boarding facilities for supporting education at universities, colleges or schools. Scholarships are a form of Financial aid for students , but, when government provides funds for public education, then it cannot be called as a financial aid. Financial aids are mainly provided to the students with a good educational track record. There are several other factors upon which the financial aid depends.
Types of financial aids:
Financial aids can be broadly classified under two major heads.
Merit based:
This is the most common type of financial aid provided to the students by various universities or outside organizations. This type of financial aid is mainly awarded based upon the merit or outstanding academic achievements of the student. The students can also be provided by financial aid for possessing some special talent, based upon personal characteristics or even for leadership qualities. There are scholarships which are also provided for affiliations to various groups like Boys Club, YMCA etc. This type of financial aid is provided to the students, irrespective of their financial needs. In most of the schools, it is seen that students seeking for financial aid or scholarships have to separately apply for it, whereas, in other colleges, every student who applies for education is considered for scholarship. There are athletic scholarships which are granted to students for excelling in sports and extra curricular activities.
Need based:
This form of scholarship is provided to the students based upon the financial condition of the students. The governing authorities perform a check upon the financial need of the students and consequently provide them with adequate funds as scholarship. In turn the students are required to apply to the governing authorities for securing these scholarships. This type of scholarship is basically for the needy students.
Drawbacks of financial aids:
Although providing the students with adequate funds for paying off educational expenses, students financial aids come along several flaws or drawbacks. The biggest problem with student financial aid is that the people of conservative nature are often denied finance or aid. It is also thought that the application process is to evaluate the financial condition of the student, but it also leads to the reduction of the amount of financial aid granted to the student Another thing to be noted about financial aid is that most of them bring into use the EFC (expected family contribution) formula.
This formula calculated the contribution of parents in the education of the students and hence, the students who are not supported by their parents forcibly have to apply for student loans These student loans sometimes are very harmful as they come along with a higher interest rate and have to be repaid within a stipulated period of time As most of the organizations providing financial aids to the students are looked after by government officers, there are great chances of corruption and illegal selection of students.