Ep 21: Financial Aid 101 with Elaine Griffin of Edvisors

We’re continuing our dive into actually paying for college with this week’s show all about financial aid! Joining Scott to help cover this important topic is Elaine Griffin, Senior Contributor and Communications Specialist at Edvisors, which is an awesome organization which manages a web network all about helping students and families looking to plan and pay for college.

Elaine has a ton of experience as a higher education professional working previously for a federal student loan guarantor. Her knowledge about higher education finance, coupled with the great work Edvisors does made her the perfect guest for this topic!

What You’ll Learn in This Episode:

• The most important facts to understand about student financial aid.
• What the FAFSA is, and how it works.
• How students (and even families) can get the most help and responsiveness from their colleges financial aid office.
• What the biggest financial aid mistake students and families make is, and how it can be avoided.
• In addition to so much more!

Featured on the Show:

• Connect with Elaine Griffin: LinkedIn
• Connect with Edvisors: Facebook | Twitter | LinkedIn
• Connect with the Show: Facebook | Twitter

Edvisors at a Glance

Planning and paying for college can seem confusing and intimidating, with no clear direction on where to start or what steps to take. Edvisors makes this less daunting by providing a wealth of information on college financial aid, in an easily accessible and approachable format. They recognize that scholarships and grants don’t always cover the entire cost of tuition. Through their articles, Edvisors strives to thoroughly dissect and explain the pros and cons of private and federal, student and parent loans. Their blog, Student Aid Matters®, is also an excellent resource for students and their families who want to make smart choices about how to plan and pay for college.

• Blog Topics: Scholarships | College Savings Plans | Student Loans | Financial Aid Application Forms | Other Aspects of Planning & Paying For College
• Facebook Community: ~426,000
• Twitter Followers: ~67.6K
• Bonus Feature: Student Survival Guide

Before you can apply for scholarships, loans, or any other financial aid, you’ll need to complete and submit the Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA). Edvisors publishes a free, interactive guide entitled, “Filing the FAFSA” each year. Plus, their site is full of FAFSA facts to help you get through that process with ease. Once that’s done, students can apply for scholarships, find out where to look for other ones, and get a few tips on how to improve their scholarship application and essay.

Student Resource Pick of the Week: Testive

Reporting your ACT and SAT scores is part of the admissions process, and the better the score, the more colleges you’ll likely be accepted into and be able to choose from. Sounds simple enough, but I know (and I’m sure you do too) that getting great scores is easier said than done.

Studying for these tests can feel like a huge task, filled with hours of using test-prep books to study random subjects, and hoping the information is sinking in enough to improve your scores. That’s why we like Testive. It breaks down the process into 20-30 minute, bite-sized study sessions, specifically based on areas where you need the most improvement.

You also get to work with an online coach for an hour or more each week, getting the benefit of a tutor without having to carve out extra travel time. And their blog is another great source of test-prep tips to use in between online tutoring sessions.

Testive works with you to help make studying for the ACT and SAT more personalized and less intimidating, giving it a 1600 (or 36) in our book.

• Click here to connect with Testive on Facebook.

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