Navigating your Financial Aid Package

Hi, my name is Destra Capers, Director of Outreach at South Carolina Student Loan. Let's talk about navigating your financial aid packages.

Students will receive their financial aid award letters in the spring of the year before they arrive to their school in the fall. When you receive those, they should have added all of the types of aid that are eligible for. If you completed your FAFSA, you will have aid that is available to you through your FAFSA.

You should have any state aid that's available as well. Any scholarships, whether they're institutional scholarships or private scholarships, are all listed there, any grants are all listed there. Now you will see scholarships, grants, and you may see some loans on there. Every student who completes the FAFSA is eligible for that direct loan in the student's name. So you may see that listed there. It may be listed as subsidized or unsubsidized.

When you are reviewing your financial aid award letter, I really want you to consider not just your favorite school, but I want you to consider your return on investments.

So when you think about your education, you are investing in yourself. There's a price point for that, and I want you to think about when starting out in your career, what is going to be your starting salary? Not 10 years in. I want you to think about starting out. What is that salary?

If you find that your starting salary is not as high as you would like, but your investment is higher, then you may want to look at some other options for schooling.

If you are dead set on going to that school, then you'll want to look at additional scholarships to help bring that price point down so your parents or you won't have high student loan debt at the end of your four-year journey.