Though a college education is expensive, there are many ways to pay for it. There are three most common ways to make sure a student can afford to go to college: money from the federal government, money from the state, and money from scholarships. But before we jump into all of the options, let's define some terms.

There's a major difference between need-based financial aid and merit-based financial aid. The first, need-based financial aid, is money for tuition (and other education-related costs) and is based on a family's income. A family's taxes reveals how much the family is able to afford. Of course, the assumption here is that a student has a family to help him with the costs. Those students going to college but have no family in the United States must be considered independent.The money usually goes directly to the college. How does a college know about the parents' income? Through the FAFSA! More on that later.

Those students who have earned or won some money for college based on their grades, talent, community service, writing skills, athleticism, etc are considered to have received merit-based financial aid. For example, some students are so good at basketball that they win scholarships to go to college. Others submit their essays, poetry, or art to win scholarships. The Posse Scholarship is an example of a merit-based scholarship. Their scholarship is awarded to students based on their performance in a series of interviews and their leadership experience and potential.

What is FAFSA? The Free Application for Federal Student Aid is just an application. It is run by the United States government and requires that students and their families input their tax information from the prior year. This year students will be putting in their tax information from 2009. It's available for students who are citizens, permanent residents, or legal immigrants (basically for those who have a social security number and/or an alien registration number).

Now, for those three sources of financial aid...

The first source is the federal government itself. That's right, Sam-Chacha. Or Uncle Sam. Vatewer.

The federal government gives out millions of dollars of financial aid every year based on how badly students need it. For those students (and/or their families) making less than $22,000 a year, students are eligible for Pell Grants, Academic Competitiveness Grants, subsidized loans, and much more.

The state governments dole out plenty of money as well. Depending on how bad students need the money, New York state as an example gives up to approximately $5,000 a year to students. Those students who enroll in the Higher Education Opportunity Program (HEOP) are also given tutoring for free on top of the extra money.

Finally, both merit-based and need-based scholarships are given to students by colleges, foundations, organizations, private companies, among others. For example, the Gates Millennium Scholars Program helps students pay for both undergraduate and graduate education! The Gates Millennium Scholars Program requires that students are deserving low-income high school seniors applying for freshman admission.

There are tons of resources out there! The first stop is a book store. Several companies put out scholarship guides. Secondly, colleges themselves offer a number of scholarships. Thirdly, FastWeb helps students search through a huge database of scholarships as does the College Board.

Good luck to all the students in finding support for their education!