Congratulations, undergraduates. You made it to April!
Now, you’re likely bracing for finals, finishing semesterlong projects or sweating how little time you have for either task. Classes are the first thing on your mind, yet enrolling in more of them may be the last thing you’re thinking of. That could be a mistake.
While April is an important milestone in the spring semester, it’s also the gateway to the summer college semester. If you’re interested in taking summer classes at your school or a different location, you should get everything in order now. And that includes how you plan to pay for them.
The Value of Summer Classes
A lecture hall is likely near the bottom of your list of preferred summer destinations. After a long year in school, many students prefer to use their breaks to recharge, not re-enroll. In addition, the summer months offer a great opportunity to work a full-time job and earn money to pay for the upcoming year.
However, enrolling in summer classes can actually be a smart way to decrease college costs. For one, the classes themselves can be cheaper, especially if you opt to attend a less expensive community college. You’ll just need to make sure any credits transfer.
Additional costs could be less expensive too. For instance, since fewer people enroll in the summer, you’ll likely have an easier time finding affordable, used textbooks.
The biggest potential savings come from accelerating your graduation date. By taking summer credits throughout college, you could shave a term or even an entire year off your education. That not only
equals savings in the form of tuition payments, but it also cuts down on room, board, and other living expenses, not to mention getting you into the workforce and earning a salary faster.
Ways to Pay for Summer Classes
While classes may be less expensive in the summer, they still won’t be cheap. To pay for them, you’ll first want to exhaust your free money options. Scholarship providers offer opportunities year-round, and your school or state may have grants just for summer classes. For example, Pennsylvania has a summer grant program for in-state students.
In addition, you may be able to receive federal Pell Grant funding. While the year-round Pell Grant program was eliminated in 2011, you may be able to use this aid for a summer semester. However, this will depend on whether you’ve already received your full annual award amount or maxed out the full 12 semesters allowed.
Other types of federal student aid, such as Perkins, Stafford and PLUS loans, work similarly. The amount of each you received in your award letter is meant to cover a full academic year. If you already reached the annual maximums for these different types of aid, you won’t be able to use them to fund a summer semester. If that happens to you, you can shop around for a private student loan to cover your enrollment costs.
Your Next Steps
Ask your school’s financial aid office about its different summer funding options, whether they require a separate summer loan application – many do – and its definition of an academic year. For most schools, the academic year begins with the fall semester and ends with the summer semester, though some begin with the summer semester and end with the spring.
Depending on their answer to that last question, you’ll need to complete either the 2014-2015 or the 2015-2016 Free Application for Federal Student Aid if you haven’t already. This will allow you to receive your federal student aid for the summer, either the amount remaining on your 2014-2015 award or the amount you’re eligible for in the upcoming year.
This information will also help you figure out how to best allocate your aid in the future. That’s because if attending summer classes is part of your larger college plan, you’ll want to review your annual federal Education loans maximums and plot out how much you’ll need for each semester.
Remember, you don’t have to accept the full amount that your school awards you. Consider turning part of that aid down, replacing it with a different funding source and saving the remainder for a future semester. If you’re unsure how much federal student aid you’ve received in a given year or overall, you can find out by visiting the National Student Loan Data System.
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