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Hoping for a Pell Grant award next year, but don’t know how much to expect? See below for the estimate and what else it means for financial aid programs.

The Pell Grant program will have more funds next year, and it should be enough to put a few students through college: $2.6 billion more than this year. How much of that will come to you? Awards should total $5000 to $5400 per student maximum. All this depends on your need, your FAFSA, EFC and so on.

Financial Aid Programs

Currently, the White House wants to shift money from student loan programs like Perkins Loans into grant programs. The proposal indicates 47 programs ending – quite a bunch. In reality, congress will make the decision themselves and then submit it for approval. I doubt all those programs will completely vanish, but we may see programs change some.

Other Student Aid

Why would the president propose to discontinue 47 programs? First, because he wants to move the money to another place. In this case, $20 billion over 5 years would go into grant programs. But also, in the past lenders didn’t have private student loans that worked well. The concept of government student loans has only been around a few decades, and private student loans not even that long. In that time, private student loans have improved drastically and do carry some of the load to help students.

From my point of view, most lawmakers and budget analysts should understand the value of good education. Higher education provides huge benefits in research, and students provide great minds to advance their fields. In the long run, programs will continue to help you finish school.

And if you need money for college but don’t know your FAFSA from EFC, come to Beat-Tuition.com to download my free short report on financial aid and read up on all kinds of tuition assistance.