Video Transcript – Financial Aid Basics
ARMANDINA GARZA-TASKIN?
The key to unlocking financial aid is for families and students to understand the process and more importantly to understand their role within the process: what type of documents, what kind of applications do you need to fill out, when do you need to have those applications filled out and submitted.
ANNOUNCER ?
If you want financial aid, all colleges and universities will ask you to file a FAFSA, a Free Application for Federal Aid--either the paper form or on the Web.
ARMANDINA ?
It's the application that every student across the country needs to fill out in order to find out what type of financial aid they are eligible for.
JANE CALDWELL ?
The most important thing about applying for financial aid is to get your forms and your paperwork completed on time. If you're late, the college will have already promised the good money to other students and you're going to miss out.
SONYA MENDEZ ?
I am going to school completely for free. Um, I have all classes paid for, all lab fees, my books are paid for, everything's paid for, and I still received money back. 
JANE CALDWELL ?
There are several types of financial aid that the college will deal with in trying to meet the needs of the student. They fall into the general categories of gift aid and self help.
ANNOUNCER (VO)
Gift aid is money that does not have to be paid back. ?It includes grants, such as the Pell Grant or Texas Grant, which are need-based, and scholarships, which are awarded for special abilities.
Self help includes loans, which have to be paid back, with interest, after you're out of college.?And work-study: part-time jobs, usually done on campus.
HILDA LOPEZ ?
When it comes to financial aid, what we know is, the early bird gets the worm, and what that means is that as soon as you can fill out your FAFSA form, and that's in January, that's when the biggest pot of money is available in terms of financial aid.
JOE WALKER ?
We didn't have a lot of financially stable people at our school. And the sad thing was, it wasn't that they didn't want to go to school, it was just kind of like everyone in their families had the idea that we can't afford it. That's the attitude that I would say probably 80% of the students at my high school had.
AHIME ORNELAS?
There is money out there, financial aid is out there. Grants are out there. But even if you don't get them, you always have that community college that's affordable. And, yeah, you can afford it on a $5.15 job. I did it, you know, there's a lot of people on this campus that have done it.
JOE WALKER ?
The counselors are really meant to help you get places that you want to go, particularly to college. And we had four counselors in our high school, and I was hitting on all four of their doors, just knocking on their doors, hey are there any new scholarships, anything here, anything there. And they were really willing to work with you. It's kind of like the old theory… you can't help anyone who doesn't want to help himself.