42 words
All the words
- 1098-T
- A tax form your college sends each year showing tuition billed and scholarships, used to claim education tax credits.
- Accommodations
- Changes your college must provide for a disability or condition, like extra test time, arranged through the disability services office.
- Add/drop deadline
- The last day early in the term to add a class or drop one without it showing on your record.
- Advisor
- The person at your college who helps you choose classes and stay on track to graduate.
- Appeal
- A written request asking the college to reconsider a decision, like losing aid for SAP, explaining what happened and your plan.
- Award letter
- The offer your college sends listing the grants, scholarships, work-study and loans you can get; you can accept some and turn down others.
- Bursar
- The office that bills you and takes payments; also called student accounts or the business office.
- Contributor
- Anyone the FAFSA asks to add their information and consent, like a parent or your spouse; each one needs their own StudentAid.gov account.
- Cost of attendance (COA)
- Your college's estimate of a year's total cost: tuition and fees, housing, food, books, transportation and personal costs.
- Credit hour
- The unit that measures a class; most classes are 3 credits, and full time is usually 12 or more a term.
- Default
- When you stop paying a federal student loan for a long time; it hurts your credit and can lead to your tax refund or wages being taken.
- Dependency override
- A financial aid office's decision to treat you as independent, so you don't need a parent's information, because of unusual circumstances like abandonment or abuse.
- Drop
- Leaving a class early in the term, usually with no grade on your record and often with a refund.
- FAFSA
- The Free Application for Federal Student Aid: the free form you fill out every year to get federal grants, work-study and loans, and often state and college aid too.
- FERPA
- The federal law that keeps your school records private; once you're in college, even your parents need your permission to see them.
- FSA ID
- Your username and password for StudentAid.gov, used to fill out and sign the FAFSA; it's yours alone and you should never share it.
- GPA
- Your grade point average: your grades turned into one number, usually on a 4.0 scale.
- Grant vs. loan
- A grant is money you keep; a loan is money you borrow and must pay back with interest. Use grants first.
- Hold
- A block on your account, often for an unpaid balance or a missing form, that can stop you from registering or getting your transcript.
- IDR / RAP
- Ways to repay federal loans based on your income; RAP, the Repayment Assistance Plan, is the newest, for loans from July 2026.
- Incomplete
- A temporary grade a professor may give when something serious kept you from finishing, so you can finish the work by an agreed date.
- Major
- Your main field of study, the subject your degree is in.
- Minor
- A smaller, second field of study with fewer required classes than a major.
- OER (Open Educational Resources)
- Textbooks and course materials that are free to read, download and share, like OpenStax books.
- Office hours
- Set times each week when a professor is available to meet with students, no appointment needed; going is normal and smart.
- Parent PLUS loan
- A federal loan your parent takes out in their own name to help pay for your college; your parent, not you, has to pay it back.
- Pell Grant
- Federal money for undergraduates with financial need that you don't pay back.
- Prerequisite
- A class you have to pass before you're allowed to take another one.
- Professional judgment
- The aid office's power to adjust your aid when your situation changed, like a job loss or big medical bills; you ask by explaining and sending proof.
- R2T4 (Return of Title IV Funds)
- The federal rule that decides how much aid must be returned if you withdraw from all your classes before finishing about 60% of the term.
- Refund (disbursement)
- When your aid is more than what you owe the college, the extra money is paid to you to use for other school costs like rent and books.
- Registrar
- The office that keeps your official records: your classes, grades, transcript and graduation.
- SAI (Student Aid Index)
- A number the FAFSA calculates from your family's finances that colleges use to decide how much need-based aid you get; it is not a bill.
- SAP (Satisfactory Academic Progress)
- The grades and pace you must keep up to stay eligible for financial aid, such as a minimum GPA and passing enough of the credits you try.
- Scholarship
- Money for school, often for grades, talent, service or your story, that you don't pay back; real scholarships never charge you to apply.
- Subsidized loan
- A federal student loan for students with financial need where the government pays the interest while you're in school at least half time.
- Syllabus
- The document for each class with its rules, grading, due dates and the professor's contact information.
- Transcript
- The official record of every class you've taken and the grade you got.
- Unsubsidized loan
- A federal student loan that doesn't depend on need, where interest starts adding up from the day the money is paid out.
- Verification
- When your college asks for documents to confirm what you put on the FAFSA; your aid can't be paid until you send them.
- Withdraw
- Leaving a class or the whole term after the drop deadline; you usually get a W on your transcript, and it can affect your aid.
- Work-study
- A federal program that pays you for a part-time job, usually on campus, to help with school costs.
General information. Your college's own rules can differ, so ask the office named if you're not sure.