Uncle Sam wants you – to get a college education. And to make that happen, it offers a helping hand to U.S. veterans.

If you’ve served your country, you have several education financial-aid

options.

The newest, the Post-9/11 GI Bill (http://www.gibill.va.gov/post-911/post-911-gi-bill-summary/), offers up to 36 months of aid. If you were on active duty on or after Sept. 11,

2001 and chose to go to school on or after Aug. 1, 2009, you may be eligible.

Or you may qualify for the Reserve Educational Assistance Program under the Montgomery GI Bill (http://www.gibill.va.gov/post-911/other-programs/reap.html). (You can’t get benefits under both programs, so choose the one that gives you the most.)

Here’s what your government offers you if you’re working toward a degree or certificate:

1. Cost of tuition and fees, not to exceed the most expensive in-state

undergraduate tuition at a public school

2.  Monthly housing allowance if attending school full time

3. Up to $1,000 per year for books and supplies

4. A one-time payment of $500 if you relocate from a rural area

In August, the GI Bill will be revamped to include other types of schooling, so check with the Department of Veterans Affairs to get the latest updates.

The Yellow Ribbon G.I. Education Enhancement Program is another chance to fund your college education. It is designed to help you cover tuition and fees that are higher than the most expensive in-state undergraduate tuition at a public college or university. See

http://www.gibill.va.gov/school_info/yellow_ribbon/index.htm.

There’s a catch, though: The school you choose must be in the VA’s program, plus tell how much tuition will be waived and how many veterans it will accept each year. But it’s a good deal because the VA will match the school’s portion (up to 50 percent) to reduce or eliminate your out-of-pocket costs.

To fill the gaps, there’s also a federal work-study program that allows you to work for the VA at an hourly rate.

In addition, New York State comes to the aid of veterans who are studying full or part time. If you are a state resident and choose to attend The City University of New York or The State University of New York, you can get up to 98 percent of the cost of undergraduate tuition, or in some cases, full tuition. See http://www.hesc.com/content.nsf/SFC/New_York_State_Programs There are some strings attached. For instance, you have to be enrolled in an undergraduate, graduate or certificate program. And you also must have applied for a federal Pell Grant and a New York State TAP award.

But the rewards are great. Undergraduates can get aid for up to the equivalent of eight semesters (four years) of full-time study. And graduate students are eligible for up to the equivalent of six semesters (three years) of full-time study.

For students in vocational training programs, the maximum is four semesters (two years) of full-time study or eight semesters (four years) of part-time study in an approved program.

So apply now. The money you save will be your own.

Alice Murphey, CUNY’s director of financial aid management, has been helping students with tuition issues for more than 30 years.

You may have heard the term “financial literacy.” Unfortunately, it’s not something that is taught in college, but it’s essential that you master it so you can plan and pay for your education.

It’s so important that April has been declared National Financial Literacy Month. Financial literacy is the ability to understand money concepts, including budgets, credit cards and debt.

It’s not as boring as it sounds because it can put “free” money in your pocket, and it doesn’t cost you a cent to learn it.

First of all, you need a daily map for managing your money. The booklet “40 Money Management Tips Every College Student Should Know” from the National Endowment for Financial Education, smartaboutmoney.org/40moneytips, will get you started.

Once you get your financial aid package from your college, you will know

how much you have to spend. All you have to do is figure out how to make

it last through the semester. That’s easy: Make a budget and stick to it.

There are many creative ways to save without cramping your lifestyle.

Here are some ideas:

• Buy used textbooks or rent them. At CUNY, for instance, the book allowance in the financial aid package is more than $1,000 per year; you get that much regardless of how much you spend.

• Don’t send your car to college. Walk, use public transportation, and/or ride a bike. Use your gas money for more important things.

• If you aren’t required to have a full meal plan, sign up for the one you will use, and instead of going out to eat, make it your meal ticket to savings.

• Living off campus may be more costly, so crunch the numbers. Beyond rent, you have to pay for utilities, groceries and transportation to classes.

Financial literacy also involves establishing good credit now that will

help you in the future. To get on the right track:

• Pay your bills on time. Even if you can’t pay off your entire credit card balance, pay something every month.

• Don’t bounce checks. You’re responsible for bounced-check fees.

• Don’t get more than one credit card. If you have several and max them out, you can get into debt quickly, plus you’ll have to pay high interest rates.

A financial-aid adviser I know recommends freezing your credit cards in a block of ice. The idea is that if you have to spend time defrosting them, you won’t have time to spend the money.

There’s no excuse for not being financially literate. You can find lots of information online:

• mymoney.gov is the federal government’s money-management site.  The link http://www.mymoney.gov/category/topic1/going-college.html will take you to other government websites.

• 360financialliteracy.org/Topics/Paying-for-Education, sponsored by the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants, contains a variety of articles, including “Freshman Finance 101: Money Management Skills for College Students” and “College Students and Credit Cards: What You Don’t Know Can Hurt You.”

So be a good teacher and a great student on the subject of financial literacy. You’ll find that it makes a lot of dollars and sense.

While you’re focusing on earning college credits, don’t overlook the “extra credit” the state and federal government offer you as a reward for your higher education.

Uncle Sam offers two tax credits – the American Opportunity Credit and the Lifetime Learning Credit.

You can’t claim both for the same student, but you can claim the American Opportunity Credit for one student and the Lifetime Learning Credit for another in the same year.

The American Opportunity Credit, which is in effect through 2012, allows a tax credit of up to $2,500 for each student, who must be in the first four years of college and studying at least half-time. Your income must be less than $90,000 if filing singly or $180,000 if married filing jointly.

There’s an extra bonus: Up to 40 percent of the credit is refundable.

It can be applied to tuition and fees, but expenses for books, supplies and study equipment aren’t included. And you have to pay at least $4,000 in qualified expenses per student to get the credit.

The Lifetime Learning Credit allows you to claim an annual tax credit of up to a total $2,000 for ALL eligible students, or 20 percent of $10,000 in college bills. At first glance, this many seem the lesser of the two credits, but it comes with fewer strings.

Unlike the American Opportunity Credit, you only have to be enrolled in one course. Graduate students, students who take more than four years to complete a degree, students taking courses to improve job skills and even those who are not pursuing a degree are eligible.

It can be claimed if income is less than $60,000 for single filers or less than $120,000 for married filing jointly.

In addition to tax credits, there are tax deductions that can help you reduce your college costs. You may be able to take a federal deduction of up to $4,000 for qualified tuition and fees if you itemize. This deduction phases out for incomes of $65,000 for single filers and $130,000 for married filing jointly.

Finally, on your federal form, you can deduct student-loan interest of up to $2,500 even if you don’t itemize. There are income limits – less than $75,000 for single filers and less than $159,000 for married filing jointly.

In New York State, you also may quality for a credit of up to $4,000 per eligible student; you’ll have to file Form IT-272.  But, if you itemize your deductions on your federal tax return, you may get a greater tax benefit if you claim the college tuition as an itemized deduction on your state tax return. Form IT-272 allows you to determine which option gives you the greater benefit.

You also can deduct up to $5,000 ($10,000 if you are married filing jointly) in contributions to a New York 529 College Savings Program.

The time you spend on filing will be time well spent, and it won’t cost an extra cent.

Alice Murphey, CUNY’s director of financial aid management, has been helping students with tuition issues for more than 30 years.

These days, when you graduate from college, you walk out into the work world not only with a diploma but also most likely with a high degree of debt.

Consider this: 60 percent of college graduates took out loans in 2008, according to a Pew Research Center report released in November 2010, borrowing an average of more than $15,425 to earn a bachelor’s degree and some $6,649 to pick up an associate or certificate degree.

Don’t get scared by what I’m going to tell you: You’re likely to be joining their ranks regardless of where you go to college. Let’s break the report’s numbers down another way: 95 percent of students at private for-profit schools, 72 percent at private schools and 50 percent at public colleges, borrowed.

Of all the types of financial aid, loans are the least desirable because you do have to pay them back. But borrowing for your college education will be a boon, not a burden, if you do it in a way that’s in your best interest.

Let’s assume that you’ve done your math homework and borrowing is not an option but a given to get you through college.

How much should you borrow?

Before you answer that, ask yourself what kind of job you hope to get when you graduate and how much it will pay. The expected salary of a teacher, for instance, is a lot different from that of an engineer.

The U.S. Labor Department’s “Occupational Outlook Handbook,” www.bls.gov/oco, will give you information about average salaries; the National Association of Colleges and Employers’ salary calculator will show you data on starting salaries at http://www.jobsearchintelligence.com/NACE/salary-calculator-intro/.

Why do you need to know this? Generally, the repayment amount of the loan should not exceed 10 to 15 percent of your average earnings over a period of 10 years.

If your repayment is higher, you may not be able to afford those everyday expenses that you may want to take on in the years after college — such as a car, a house, and children.

Next, find out what the average debt level is for the college you have chosen. This is important because your loan amount probably will increase as the tuition goes up. Although some colleges will increase your scholarship when tuition rises, others don’t have the money to do so.

Finally, if you find that you need to borrow, I’ll give you – not loan you – my best advice: Choose the loan that gives you the biggest bang for your bucks.

The federal loan programs – the Direct Stafford Loan Program (http://studentaid.ed.gov/PORTALSWebApp/students/english/studentloans.jsp?tab=funding) and the Perkins Loan Program (http://www2.ed.gov/programs/fpl/index.html) — have relatively low interest rates and allow you to defer payments for a period if you are unemployed or underemployed. College-funded loans also are usually a good option, but they are not always available.

Make private loans, the ones offered through lenders and banks, your last choice. They usually have much higher interest rates and are set up to make it easy for you to dig a very deep hole that is very difficult to pay your way out of.

Alice Murphey, CUNY’s director of financial aid management, has been helping students with tuition issues for more than 30 years.

What do you do if your financial-aid package comes up short?

1. Pay for college in installments.
2. Read this column.
3. Search for more scholarships and aid.
4. Look for other sources of income, like summer jobs and work-study.
5. Make use of federal tax incentives.
6. All of the above.

If you answered F on this, your first college test, you get an A-plus.

Your financial-aid package isn’t the last word on the amount of money that you can put toward your college education. But it’s up to you to take the initiative to find creative ways to fill in the gap between what you get and what you need.

You don’t have to be a financial wiz or spend a lot of money to add dollars to the pot.

One simple and inexpensive way to cut bills immediately is to sign up for the payment plans offered by many colleges. This way, you can make monthly contributions throughout the year, and have the plan forward the funds at the start of each term to pay your bills. Typically, there’s a small fee. Or you can set aside monthly payments in your own account and pay as you go.

Searching for scholarships and other aid won’t cost you a penny. Skip the search services that charge; they can be expensive, up to $395 per search. And they don’t offer custom results. They often include only the general sources of aid that apply to everyone: state grants, federal Pell Grants, federal student loans and work-study. You can do better on your own and use the $395 you’ve saved to help pay for college.

There are several free websites that may be invaluable to your scholarship/aid search. Try fastweb.com, collegenet.com/mach25/app and apps.collegeboard.com/cbsearch_ss/welcome.jsp.

In addition to the free search services, other scholarship sources may be right in front of you. If either of your parents belongs to a union, find out whether it offers scholarships to members’ children. Ask employers if there’s a company scholarship program or an employee benefit to help with dependents’ college bills. And ask whether your high school gives scholarships that you may qualify for.

Most colleges make their initial admissions decisions based on six semesters of high school transcripts. Academic-based scholarships, such as CUNY’s Peter F. Vallone Academic Scholarship for students from New York City high schools who have a B grade-point average, are based on that record.  If your grade-point average has improved in your senior year, ask the college to review your updated records to determine whether a scholarship can be awarded.

The federal tax code provides a variety of incentives for families who are saving for or paying higher education costs or are repaying student loans.  You may be able to claim a HOPE Scholarship and Lifetime Learning Credit or a tuition deduction of up to $4,000 per year. You also may be able to deduct the interest on your student loan. For details on this credit, see www.irs.gov/individuals/article/0,,id=96341,00.html.

And don’t forget to look for a summer job; the money you earn can be put toward your college expenses.

Alice Murphey, CUNY’s director of financial aid management, has been helping students with tuition issues for more than 30 years.

Although classes won’t start until fall, the next big date to mark on your college-career calendar is April 1.

By then, you should have your financial aid offer in hand, so you can use those figures to help you figure out which college is best for you. The biggest factor in your final decision will, of course, be whether you can afford your top choice.

Running the numbers is as easy as Math 101. Read each college award letter, and add up the awards for aid, including grants, scholarships, work-study and loans. Then figure out each school’s costs, adding tuition and fees; housing and food-plan charges; books and supplies; transportation; and spending money.  (If you are looking at an out-of-state school, figure in out-of-state tuition, too, since that amount will be missing from your financial aid offer.)

Subtract the aid from the cost you’ve calculated. That is the magic number that will determine what you will pay.

Now is when it pays to really educate yourself by digging a little deeper. If you’re awarded a scholarship, check how many years it covers. If it’s for several years, make sure you understand the renewal conditions. Many scholarships require maintaining a certain grade point average and full-time enrollment. Others require community service.

Examine the amounts and types of loans you’ve been offered. Apply for the federal loans that you qualify for, before you consider private ones.  The rates on federal loans are lower, and unlike private loans, they may be canceled because of death or disability and carry deferment options. It’s better to have only one type of loan, but at some schools you may find two or three types in your aid package, which can create repayment complications.

Even if there aren’t any loans in your financial aid award, you still may be eligible for them.  CUNY, for example, doesn’t offer federal loans on its award letters, but you still may qualify for them by submitting a separate application. At other colleges, even if a subsidized federal loan is included in your financial aid package, you still might be eligible for an additional unsubsidized one.

Study each loan’s rates and repayment terms. Some loans have a fixed rate. Others reset periodically, so if interest rates rise, they will get more expensive to repay.

To make it easy to compare and contrast offers from various colleges, check out these two online tools: apps.collegeboard.com/fincalc/ep/step6-1.jsp and educationplanner.com/finaid/code/award_analyzer.asp?sponsor=2859.

But the bottom line is: Don’t be upset if you can’t afford your first-choice college. One student I counseled visited a college he loved and was thrilled to be accepted.  There was only one problem: The college told his mother to take out a loan equal to her annual salary. And that was just for one year! He chose to attend a public college instead and had an incredible, and affordable, four years there and, best of all, no regrets.

Next week, I’ll tell you how to find more money or cut your costs if your financial-aid offer isn’t adequate.

Alice Murphey, CUNY’s director of financial aid management, has been helping students with tuition issues for more than 30 years.

Remember how happy you were when you got your letter of acceptance to the college of your dreams?

Well, now there’s something equally exciting to look forward to: Your financial aid package, which will determine whether you can afford to go to the college you have set your heart and mind on.

In my previous column, I helped you compute your Expected Family Contribution through the Free Application for Federal Student Aid.

Your college’s financial aid office will be crunching those numbers to put together a financial aid package made up of scholarships, grants, work and loans.

Each school has its own policies for helping students; academics, then need, are considered.

For example, some Ivy League and “near-Ivy” colleges tap into their abundant endowments to help students whose families earn less than $100,000. Others refrain from making student loans when families make less than a certain amount, say around $60,000.

Less affluent colleges may not be able to offer such generous aid but still target money to student need. In most cases, awards from large federal and state government programs are the foundation of the award package.

Generally, New York schools first explore a student’s eligibility for a state Tuition Assistance Program (TAP) award, which is a maximum of $5,000 or tuition, whichever is less. At CUNY and SUNY colleges, for example, this award can cover the cost of a year’s tuition for a low-income student. Eligibility for federal Pell Grants, which gave up to $5,550 this year for full-time students, is then considered.

If you are awarded a merit scholarship, that funding is factored into your package, too. As each layer of award eligibility is considered, more and more of your need is addressed.

Usually, at this stage, colleges consider how to apply need-based grants, student job opportunities and student loans. Some make awards for self-help programs such as Federal Work-Study and student loans earlier in the process; others consider loans last.

Some colleges apply loans before their own institutional grants, making more of the college’s funds available to students who need it the most. Others believe that students who aren’t directed toward loans are better off.

Public colleges, with attendance costs around $10,500 to $13,000 for students living at home, are often more able to apply loans as a last approach since TAP and federal Pell Grants frequently cover a substantial amount of student need, and small institutional grants can fill the rest of the gap for poorer students.

Of course, at the other extreme, Ivy Leagues can afford to provide packages that are free of loans.

I recently worked with a student who was accepted at a prestigious private college whose cost was way out of his family’s reach.

I found that between scholarships, grants, loans and work, the college had offered him more than $35,000 a year, and his family was expected to cover less than $3,000, which was very doable.

This doesn’t always happen, of course, but a financial aid package may still make it possible for you to go to your first-choice college.

Alice Murphey, CUNY’s director of financial aid management, has been helping students with tuition issues for more than 30 years.

Everybody works to get high marks in college, but in the so-called School of Financial Aid, sometimes it pays to get the lowest score.

Such is the case with your Expected Family Contribution, which is referred to as EFC. Your EFC is determined by the information on your Free Application for Federal Student Aid, or FAFSA. (And I know you have submitted your FAFSA already so you can be ahead of the game; there’s still time to file, but at this point some students are starting to receive their award letters.)

Colleges calculate your need for aid based on your EFC and the cost of attending school. First, they look to see whether you are eligible for merit awards, which are based on high school academics and performance or SAT scores. Then they tap into grants based on financial need.

Some applicants are intimidated by the EFC, but there’s nothing to worry about. The EFC is a helpful tool that takes the guesswork out of financing your college education.

I recently volunteered at College Goal Sunday, a program to help families fill out their FAFSAs. One father was concerned that his EFC would be so high that he would not be able to send his son to college. So he was surprised – and delighted – to discover that his EFC was zero.

Your FAFSA information is processed with a formula developed by Congress to determine your EFC. The EFC is a measure of your family’s financial strength; colleges use it to determine the amount and kind of financial aid package they will offer you.

Your EFC is based on this FAFSA data: total family income and benefits, tax-filing status, number of people in your family, number of family members in college and some family assets.

Another key factor of EFC is your dependency status. The answers to certain questions on your financial aid application(s) will determine whether you are a dependent student who must report your parents’ income and resources along with your own, or whether you are an independent student who is required to report only your own (and if you have one, your spouse’s) income and resources.

After your FAFSA has been processed, you will receive a Student Aid Report or SAR. The SAR lists the information from your application and indicates whether you correctly completed the application and signed it. If there are no errors, the SAR will include your EFC.

Check the information on the SAR to make sure it is accurate and that you didn’t inadvertently misreport anything. You can always go back online and correct your FAFSA.

To be eligible for a federal Pell Grant, for example, your EFC must be below a certain dollar amount, which can vary from year to year. For the 2011-2012 award years, the EFC must be less than $5,274. Pell Grants for next year are $555 to $5,550 for full-time students. The highest grants are given to students with the lowest EFCs.

By the way, that worried father at College Goal Sunday was a big winner: Not only was his EFC zero, but his son also was eligible for a full Pell Grant.

Alice Murphey, CUNY’s director of financial aid management, has been helping students with tuition issues for more than 30 years.

What does college really cost? Ah, that’s the million-dollar question.

The short answer is that it depends on three factors: where you go, how much financial aid you get and how carefully you budget. You’ll need to think hard about those three questions as you explore and proceed with, the process of applying for, and hopefully receiving, financial aid.

A year of college won’t cost a million, but it could be pricey. According to the latest annual survey from the College Board, which tracks higher-education trends, the average cost of a year of private college for 2010-11 is $36,993. There are more expensive, well-known private schools and out-of-state public universities, where your tuition will be higher, and you’ll have to pay for housing.

There are less costly choices, too, like The City University of New York, which has four-year colleges and community colleges where most of the students can live at home while studying. And there are special programs.

High-achieving students admitted to CUNY’s William E. Macaulay Honors College, for instance, receive not only free tuition but a $7,500 academic stipend and a laptop.

When you are figuring out what a particular college will cost, look beyond its admissions materials, which may only list tuition, fees and room and board.  If you are doing your research online, make sure that the costs are updated. Colleges are notorious for leaving prior-year tuition and fees online after tuition has gone up.

If you are a high school senior who plans to attend college this coming fall you are facing the prospect of filing for financial aid.

If you haven’t done it yet, it’s time to get going.  Some colleges have very early deadlines for filing the financial aid paperwork and you need to make sure that your application is there before the due date.

No matter where you hope to go to school next fall, it’s not too late to seek financial aid. Maybe you’re waiting for your family to complete their 2010 tax returns. Or you’re sure that the application is so difficult that you can’t get started.  Or you are afraid that you will make a mistake.

Lots of prospective college students feel the same way.  There is always something else (like homework) that needs to get done and that financial aid application can be put off for another day.  But now is the time to get it done in order to give you the best chance to grab some of that free money that is available.

All you have to do is sit down at your computer, go to www.fafsa.ed.gov and start typing.

The FAFSA is the primary application for financial aid. You should fill it out on the web at www.fafsa.ed.gov since it is easier and you get faster processing than filling out a paper application.  There are also online instructions and FAFSA on the Web identifies potential errors right away.   Apply online and in about three days your information will be sent to the colleges you’ve listed.   There is also another form that you college may require called the College Scholarship Service Profile form.  Check with the colleges you are interested in to see if that additional form is required.

The first step in completing the FAFSA is to get a PIN so that you can electronically sign your application online.  Go to the website www.pin.ed.gov and select APPLY NOW.  Follow the directions and get your federal PIN.  If you are a dependent student, one of your parents should also get a PIN so that they can also sign your application.  Note that you can’t both use the same PIN.  Once you have your PIN you should save it to somewhere you will remember.  You will be able to use this same PIN to apply for aid every year you attend college.

Then go to the FAFSA Web site and start the filing process.  Your answers are automatically saved at the end of every page so you can walk away and come back to pick up where you left off.  You can estimate your figures based on last year’s information and then correct it later.  Promise yourself you’ll at least start completing the FAFSA this week.

Filing soon is imperative because without a FAFSA application, you won’t be considered for financial aid. Also, there’s potentially a big payoff, ranging from grant and scholarship money to federally subsidized or guaranteed student loans. And the earlier you file the better chance that you will be eligible for some of these funds.

Your eligibility is based on data you submit on the FAFSA, which is used to calculate your expected family contribution toward college.  That contribution, as well as the total cost of attending college, determines the amount of aid you can expect to receive.

If your expected family contribution is zero, you could get the maximum $5,550 federal Pell grant.  Colleges also award aid based on need; the earlier you file a FAFSA, the better your chances, since colleges aren’t dipping into a bottomless pool of money.

You can apply to the New York State Tuition Assistance Program through a link on the FAFSA Web site. This program can cover up to full tuition at CUNY and SUNY, or $5,000 at private colleges.

Colleges are already reviewing financial aid applications, which started coming in Jan. 1. By late March and early April, they begin to send award notices to accepted students, which helps you decide where you’ll be going when September comes along.

So it is time to be proactive and get your FAFSA done.  It can’t hurt and certainly could help you find some money to pay for college.