College price tag: 5 things to know about applying for, evaluating federal financial aid

About now, countless households across the Triangle are in the process of making a big decision: Where will their high school senior head to college next year?

Those price tags can be a shocker for many families, but there's some good news. The rate of one-year price increases is dropping - from a high of 13 percent a few years ago to 3 percent for the past five years.

Many also are taking advantage of grant aid and tax benefits to cover tuition and fees. Full-time students in the public and private nonprofit four-year sectors receive an average of $5,830 and $20,210, respectively, in grant aid and tax benefits. That covers close to 60 percent tuition and fees, according to the College Board's report.

In 2016, more than 13 million students received a total of $125.7 billion in federal student aid. There are, literally, billions of dollars in federal financial aid available to North Carolina students.

February is Financial Aid Awareness Month, so I checked in with Sarita Broadway, College Foundation of North Carolina regional representative, who shared five things that parents and students should know about qualifying for the money, along with some tips for parents and students, who are weighing those college offers now.

If you or your child will be attending college next year - either as a freshman or an upper classmen - you should already have filled this form out. It's available for the next academic year on Oct. 1, and Broadway recommends parents and students fill it out as soon as possible.

Why? Because if you want any chance of securing federal or state aid - including grants, work-study opportunities and federal loans - you MUST have this form filled out.

The deadline to fill out the form, which takes about 30 minutes, has passed for some colleges and universities. But, Broadway said that there is still time for others.

"If you don't apply for financial aid, then you are basically looking at paying for college out of pocket completely," Broadway said. "It's very important that parents complete the FAFSA so they don't run into any barriers."

This is a very common myth and misconception among families out there, Broadway said. Many think that there's no reason for them to fill out the FAFSA simply because they make too much money. Fill it out, she said.

"Sometimes parents have the assumption that there's no point in completing the FAFSA form based on their income," she said. "They think, 'I know I'm not going to get anything. My neighbor completed the application and didn't get anything.'"

But Broadway said it's difficult to compare your neighbor's situation with yours.

"It's based on the household," she said. "It looks at the assets, the tax and untaxed income, if you have a summer home, if you have a winter home, if you have an education IRA, a 529 plan. It's looking at if you receive child support, if you get alimony. It's looking at so many different facets so you can't base it on one household's situation."

What's more, who knows what your situation will be next year. There could be a job loss, for instance, that cuts your household's income in half. Grandma might move in, depleting your family's income. There could be a fire or a natural disaster that wreaks havoc on your budget and emergency fund.

"If a situation such as that arises, colleges and universities have a form on their site ... that families can complete, letting financial aid offices know that ... income has been affected by these circumstances," Broadway said. Often, higher education institutions can help families in need, she said, but only if they filled out a FAFSA form the previous year.

"It's kind of like having insurance," Broadway said of having the FAFSA form completed. "You just never know what's going to happen in the future."

Grants? Check.

Work-study? Check.

Loans? Check.

Broadway recommends that parents and students express interest in all forms of aid when they fill out the FAFSA. You can always say no later, Broadway said, but don't rule yourself out of one kind of aid category at the start.

If you're offered a work-study opportunity later, for instance, that's the time to take a closer look at whether that opportunity will work for the student's course load and interest. Same goes for loans, she said.

"Go ahead and apply for it and then you can decide later if you don't want it," she said.

It is, of course, important to have conversations with your kids about the cost of college, the differences between grants and loans and just how much you will expect your child to pay for their college education. But Broadway said it's also important to know that some colleges may not be out of reach - even if the total tuition and fees are eye-popping.

"In some cases, you have some colleges that may have more monies to make available to students," Broadway said. "Ivy League universities have more money to give out. Some smaller private schools have more money to give out."

Those grants and scholarships may still make the college unaffordable, but, Broadway said, it's worth a shot.

And, she added: "The best advice still is complete the FAFSA form."

If you have offers in hand, look closely at what each institution has offered. There often will be a mix of loans, work-study options and grants. Don't make assumptions that one package is going to be better than another. Don't expect, for instance, that the public university will always be cheaper than the private one.

Get out the pencil and paper and calculator and do the math to determine what your out-of-pocket expenses will be for each college and whether that will work for your budget. Don't forget to include the costs of housing and living expenses into your calculations. And, once you do get that final award package from the college, usually by email, get back to them in a timely fashion, Broadway said, or you could miss out.

And that's definitely one deadline you wouldn't want to miss.