Are 529 plans really worth it? Why should a family bother filling out the FAFSA if you know you won't qualify? What colleges have "no loans" policies where any financial aid offered is always a grant, not a loan that needs to be paid back?
Mark Kantrowitz is a financial aid expert, author of Secrets to Winning a Scholarship, and the founder of both finaid.org and fastweb.com which are two of the very best–and FREE–sources of information for financial aid and scholarships.
This week he's been doing a three-part series on "The Choice" blog answering readers' questions about financial aid. The questions they chose are some of the most commonly asked, and the answers are detailed and helpful. It's worth taking a look if you're concerned at all about your family's ability to pay for college. Here are the links for part I, part II and part III.