Lesson 3.3: Paying for College: Aid, FAFSA/TAP & Student Loans
The Go Further companion to Lesson 3.3 in Money Decisions.
FAFSA — Federal Student Aid
The free application that starts almost everything: federal grants, work-study, federal student loans — and, in New York, the TAP application through HESC. The FAFSA is free; anyone charging you to file it is selling you a form the government gives away.
HESC — TAP & Excelsior
New York's Higher Education Services Corporation: home of the TAP application and the Excelsior Scholarship — the state layer of the aid stack, applied for separately from the FAFSA.
Key ideas from the lesson
- Start with the full price — the cost of attendance, not just tuition — then sort every line of the award letter into four piles: gift, earned, loan, family.
- Gift aid (grants, scholarships, TAP) is yours to keep. Earned aid (work-study) is yours only if you work the hours. Every loan dollar comes back with interest. Family money isn't aid at all.
- The FAFSA is free, and filing it is how you get considered for almost everything — in New York it also starts TAP, but TAP is a separate application through HESC. Students who skip the FAFSA leave money behind every year.
- Excelsior covers the SUNY or CUNY tuition still left after TAP and federal grants — in exchange for a full course load, and living and working in New York for as many years as you received it. Leave early, and it turns into a loan.
- The order of operations: use gift aid first, then earned aid, and borrow last.
Why this helps
Build the Aid Stack is a sorting exercise with real stakes: misread the letter and you can borrow money you were given for free. These are the two official front doors to the stack — the federal one and New York's — and both are free.
Try this
On the HESC site, find what TAP stands for and one thing it requires that the FAFSA doesn't finish for you. Then write the four piles from the lesson in order and put “Excelsior” in the right one — gift, earned, loan or family — with its one big condition attached.
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