In This Chapter

We recently moved from the big city to a much more rural part of the country. In addition to all the other perks of smaller town living, I love the fact that people are just far more creative in their solutions to life’s problems. They have home remedies for everything from a toothache to parenting problems. Of course, I’ve come to recognize that some of these solutions are absolutely useless wives’ tales, like changing your diet to determine what gender your baby will be. I’ve also come to realize that others are actually downright harmful, like putting butter on a burn.

Over the years, I’ve come to recognize that eligibility for financial aid is not much different. There are a ton of myths and solutions floating around about how to increase your financial aid eligibility or how much financial aid you can actually qualify for. Further, many of these recommendations can actually harm someone’s financial aid chances more than they help them.

To keep you from falling prey to useless or even destructive financial aid eligibility tricks, this chapter picks apart the financial aid eligibility formula and how it is really calculated. As a bonus, we’ll walk through some of the broad techniques that really can make a difference in how the government and schools determine your financial need and what aid they’ll provide.