There’s lots of help on the Web

If you already have a federally funded student loan, or may be getting one in the future, here are some Web sites operated by the U.S. government that could be very helpful.

www.studentaid.ed.gov

This is a good starting point, with general information on federal student financial assistance.

www.ed.gov./DirectLoan/

This is the Direct Loan home page, with information on the U.S. Department of Education’s lending programs. This includes information on student loan consolidation.

www.fafsa.ed.gov

Provides eligibility information, a worksheet for the Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA) and the FAFSA application itself that you can print out OR complete and submit right on line! If you need to know anything about student loans ... you need to know about FAFSA!

www.nslds.ed.gov/

If you already have a student loan, you can access your specific loan data, including a Financial Aid Review.

www.ombudsman.ed.gov/

Got a problem or concern regarding your student loan? Here’s the Web site to go to for addressing student loan problems or issues.

www.ombudsman.ed.gov/scam.html

An important part of the Web site listed above,  this site provides information on how to identify potential scholarship scams.

And here’s another great Web site provided by the government with lots of great information on many different topics related to college life:

www.students.gov/

Information includes, but isn’t limited to:

• Planning your education

• Career development

• Campus life

• Paying for your education

• Military funding for college

• Even online study help!

This site is a joint effort of several U.S. government agencies and provides LOTS of information.

 As you can see, the Department of Education and other government agencies maintain Web sites that can be very informative and very helpful.

TRANSFER TIMES . . . helping students transfer from a community college to a four-year school