FSEOG (Grants) Federal Supplemental Educational Opportunity Grant

There are numerous ways of finding financial support in order to attend school, and for children and families with particularly difficult financial circumstances there are several federally funded grants that deliver funds without the need for repayment.

However, there is a need to qualify for the primary grant – the Federal Pell Grant – in order to obtain secondary funding from the other grants. The Federal Pell Grant is generally provided to students seeking their Bachelor’s degree, and who have never obtained a degree before. Federal Pell Grants are usually referred to as “the foundation of federal student financial aid” because they are awarded to students who demonstrate true financial need and lay the groundwork for further assistance and awards.

All federally funded or underwritten financial aid programs require the filing of a standardized application – the Free Application for Federal Student Aid, or as it is commonly called the FAFSA. Within the FAFSA will be all of the information required to accurately determine what a student’s, or their family’s, annual contribution to educational expenses could, realistically, be.

With this figure the student’s school of choice figures what a student’s actual financial need will be by subtracting the family contribution from the cost of attending.

After this the amount of a Federal Pell Grant must be determined, and this takes into consideration some of the same figures, such as the family contribution and cost of attendance, but also figures the grant amount based on the student’s enrollment status (full or part-time) and whether they will be enrolled for the full year or a single semester.

After the Pell Grant is awarded the school will then help to fill any further expense gaps through other federal grants. One of the most commonly applied is the Federal Supplemental Educational Opportunity Grant or the FSEOG. This can only be awarded to students with exceptional financial need, and only to schools that have received the funds from the federal government. Some schools are not able to provide FSEOGs to their students, and anyone relyiing on them should be sure the school receives the monies in question.

The trick to the FSEOG is that if a school does not use up all of the funds they receive, the federal governmnet reduces or eliminates their funding, and they are usually only available until the funds are gone. This means that while all Pell Grant recipients are eligible for FSEOG funds, they will only be able to receive them if they apply in a timely fashion.