If you are planning to attend a university or online college for your career training in liberal arts, you may qualify for federal loans to help with education expenses through Federal Student Aid.

What Is Federal Student Aid?
Federal Student Aid is an office of the U.S. Department of Education that provides federally funded financial assistance to individuals or families that qualify for help, in order to pay college expenses.

The FSA processes 14 million student financial aid applications a year, and provides over $80 billion annually in aid to qualifying students through schools. Financial Student Aid enforces financial rules and regulations in order to prevent fraud, waste, or abuse of the system.

Where Do I Start?

There are three steps in preparing for Federal Student Aid.

* Check if you qualify for financial aid

* Filling out the application

* Check the status of your application

In order to get the ball rolling, go to the student aid website and apply for an account. From there you can plan for college, search for scholarships, apply to colleges online, research financial aid prospects, and other important information that can help you obtain federally funded college aid. Deadline dates for application can also be found there.

Use the Wizards
The Financial Aid and Scholarship Wizard helps you to tackle some of the questions that concern individuals who are seeking financial aid. The wizards help you to go through step-by-step instructions to find, identify, and match your profile needs for scholarships, and applicable funding sources for college.

The Deadlines
According to the FAFSA (Free Application For Student Aid), the deadlines for applications are:

The 2008-2009 School Year (July 1^st, 2008 - June 30^th, 2009):

* FAFSA on the Web applications must be submitted by midnight Central Daylight time, June 30, 2009.

* Corrections on the Web forms must be submitted by midnight Central Daylight Time, September 15, 2009.

* Note: Your school must have your complete and correct information by your last day of enrollment in the 2008-2009 school year.

The 2009-2010 School Year (July 1^st, 2009 - June 30^th, 2010):

*FAFSA on the Web applications must be submitted by midnight Central Daylight time, June 30, 2010.

*Corrections on the Web forms must be submitted by midnight Central Daylight time, September 15, 2010.

*Note: Your school must have your complete and correct information by your last day of enrollment in the 2009-2010 school year.

The FAFSA website recommends that students ask their school of choice about its definition of what “application deadline” means. Some schools recognize the receipt time of the application as the deadline, while others determine the deadline by the time the application is processed.