Financing Your Education With Federal Supplemental Educational Opportunity Grants

Federal Supplemental Educational Opportunity Grants assist those undergraduate students signed up for a postsecondary education that cannot afford their educational expenses without financial aid. The grant is in place to enable them to meet their educational expenses to the successful completion of a postsecondary degree.

Federal Supplemental Educational Opportunity Grants are overseen by the Department of Education and are categorized under the Federal Student Aid Information Center. In order to be eligible, students have to be enrolled in eligible schools which may be public or private nonprofit institutions of higher education. These can include but are not restricted to universities, colleges, hospital schools of nursing, vocational-technical schools and for- profit institutions.

Students need to sign a statement of educational purpose, a statement of registration compliance (selective service) are not permitted to owe reimbursement on another a Title IV grant, cannot actually have a Title IV loan that is defaulted, cannot already have a bachelors degree and must file their Free Application for Federal Student Aid.

While the Federal Supplemental Educational Opportunity Grants program is overseen by the Department of Education, the disbursing agent will be the Federal Student Aid office. The Federal Student Aid office will both determine and notify participating institutions. From there the institution awards these funds to the students based on financial need. The necessity for financial assistance is as established using the Federal Needs Analysis. Federal Supplemental Educational Opportunity Grants require the institution to match funds with what is awarded.

To be qualified to receive the Federal Supplemental Educational Opportunity Grants the student is required to be a United States citizen or an eligible non-citizen (this implies those with an Alien Registration Card or those with Arrival Departure Record with specific designations). The student should also be accepted for enrollment into an eligible institution of higher education.

The total grants were $770,933,000 in 2007; approximately $757,464,800 in 2008; $757,464,800 in 2009 and $757,464,800 in 2010. Depending upon the need of the student and how much they are assigned designated by the institution, the grant received through the program can vary between $100 and $4,000; mostly, a new student was able to expect around $736 in 2010. A student cannot receive more than $4,000 unless the study abroad costs (within reason) exceed the cost of attendance at the student's home institution, at that point the student can receive up to $4,400.

There were around 1,302,740 recipients for the program in 2010. That year the exact amount available was $958,816,000; this represents the amount of funds awarded to participants in this program. This total can include federal appropriated dollars and institutional matching dollars.

Students that want to find out more or want to declare that they are interested in being considered for Federal Supplemental Educational Opportunity can contact the educational institution that they already attend or plan to attend in the future. More information is available at http://www2.ed.gov/programs/fseog/index.html

Michael Saunders is an editor of TopGovernmentGrants.com. He maintains Websites providing resources on small business grants and philanthropy giving.


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