Grants vs Scholarships vs Loans
The words are used loosely and the differences are financial. What each type of funding obliges you to do, how they interact inside an aid package, and the questions to ask before accepting one.
Student Grants
A grant is money you do not repay, awarded mostly on assessed financial need rather than on merit. That single distinction — need versus merit, repayable versus not — drives most of the confusion students have about paying for university, and it is where avoidable mistakes are most expensive.
This section explains how the main need-based systems work in practice: what a household actually has to disclose, how an aid office converts that disclosure into an award, why two students with similar incomes can receive very different packages, and which parts of a package are grants, which are loans dressed up in friendly language, and which are work obligations.
We cover the United States federal aid process, UK student finance, and the general principles that transfer to Canadian and Australian systems. Because eligibility rules and thresholds are revised annually, we describe mechanisms and decision points rather than quoting figures, and we link to the government source that publishes the current numbers.
Articles in Student Grants
FAFSA and US Need-Based Aid Explained
What the FAFSA actually calculates, how the Student Aid Index turns into an award, why two similar families get different packages, and the deadlines that are not the federal one.
UK Student Finance and Grants Explained
Four different systems, not one. How tuition fee loans, means-tested maintenance support, Disabled Students' Allowances and the non-repayable grants actually work — and who administers your application.