Financing Plan for Entering Students

We understand that putting all the pieces together to finance a college education can be confusing, so we’ve developed a personalized Plan to help navigate all the options to help pay your student account bill. Your Plan will be sent to you in the spring before you enroll.

Albion Costs

These are the items that will appear on your student account with the College. You’ll need to pay these costs or have a payment plan in place before the start of the academic year.

Scholarships and Grants

Grants and scholarships do not have to be repaid. Your Albion merit scholarship is renewed for four years (two for transfer students), as long as you are making academic progress. Other grants and scholarships are usually based on financial need and a FAFSA needs to be completed each year to determine if you remain eligible for them. You may be required to submit a thank you note for your scholarship, check MyAlbion to get more information.

Self-Help

These funds are offered to you to help meet your costs; you do not have to accept them if you have other resources available. In order to receive loan funds you must complete a promissory note and entrance counseling. Instructions on how to do so are in MyAlbion. You are responsible for repaying those loans when you leave school. Loan funds can be applied to your student account when all the requirements are met.

Work-Study

Work-study funds are earned by working on-campus or with a community organization. You get a regular pay check that you can use to pay incidentals or apply to your student account.

Student Resources

You can use this section to calculate your contributions from savings, outside scholarships you’ve earned or funds you plan on borrowing through an outside bank or lender. You can add those up and place the total under the ‘My Plan’ section.

Parent Resources

This section allows you to include contributions from savings or current income. It can also reflect resources from the PLUS Loan (a loan parents can borrow up to the cost of attendance) or available payment plans. Total those amounts and place that in the ‘My Plan’ section.

My Plan

We’ve included your Albion costs that will be billed to you, as well as your financial aid resources. Using the amounts you’ve included from the student and parent resources sections, you can subtract all of your resources to determine your remaining direct cost. This is the amount you’ll need to pay to the College.

Indirect Costs

These expenses are variable depending upon your spending patterns. The amounts we’ve listed are typical for most students, you can change them depending upon your spending habits.

Bottom Line

Taking your remaining direct cost from above and adding your indirect costs you can see what’s left. The goal is to have this amount equal zero, so you know all of your expenses are covered. If it’s not then you’ll want to either reduce your indirect costs, look at how to add some additional resources or a combination.