FinAid | Answering Your Questions

Books About Loans

Lana J. Chandler and Michael D. Boggs, The Student Loan Handbook, 2nd edition, Betterway Publications, White Hall, VA, 1990. ISBN 1-55870-187-7 ($7.95). 167 pages. This book focuses on federal student loans, and hence is quite dated. Out of print.

S. Norman Feingold and Marie Feingold, Scholarships, Fellowships, and Loans, 9th edition, Bellman Publishing Company, Bethesda, Maryland, 1992-1993. $80. Scholarships, fellowships, and loans. Since 1992, editions are now published by Gale Research.

Huber William Hurt, Harriett-Jeanne Hurt and Christian E. Burckel, The College Blue Book -- Scholarships, Fellowships, Grants and Loans, Volume 5, 25th edition, Macmillan Publishing Company, New York, 1995. ISBN 0-02-895147-6 five volume set ($235). ISBN 0-02-895148-4 single-user CD-ROM ($335). ISBN 0-02-895151-4 network CD-ROM ($425). ISBN 0-02-895149-2 five volume set and single-user CD-ROM ($545). ISBN 0-02-895152-2 five volume set and network CD-ROM ($645). Revised every two years. The College Blue Book is a five-volume set that provides information about post-secondary education and financial aid. Volume 5, which is 895 pages long, provides information about scholarships, fellowships, grants, and loans from private and public sources. It includes information about awards for undergraduate students, graduate students, and post-doctoral students. Awards are organized according to discipline, meaning that some listings are repeated. So, even though the awards are numbered from 1 to 2,753, the book lists only about 2,000 distinct award programs from approximately 1,000 sponsors. The book includes award title, sponsor, subject, and education level indexes. The CD-ROM lets you search for awards by subject area, award title, sponsor, and educational level. Volume 5 (ISBN 0-02-895026-7) was previously available separately for $48.00, but this appears to no longer be true. To order a copy, call 1-800-716-0044 or 1-317-228-4366, fax 1-800-882-8583 or 1-317-228-4304, write to Macmillan Publishing, 201 West 103rd Street, Indianapolis, IN 46290, or send email to orders@mcp.com. You can also call 1-800-257-5755 or 1-800-261-8783, or write to Macmillan Publishing Company, 866 Third Avenue, Fifth Floor, New York, NY 10022.

David Jaffe, The New College Financial Aid System: Making It Work for You, Council Oak Books, Tulsa, Oklahoma, 1993. ISBN 0-93303-182-3 ($14.95). 141 pages. This book focuses on federal and state aid, and so is somewhat dated. However, there is some information about negotiating for a better aid package. To order a copy, write to Council Oak Books, Tulsa, OK 74120.

Debra M. Kirby and Christa Brelin, Fund Your Way Through College: Uncovering 1,700 Great Opportunities in Undergraduate Financial Aid, Visible Ink Press (Gale Research), Detroit, Michigan, 1994. ISBN 0-81039-457-X ($19.95). 731 pages. Organized alphabetically, with geographic, field, and characteristic indexes. To order a copy, call 1-800-877-4253 or write to Gale Research, Inc., 835 Penobscot Building, Detroit, MI 48226-4094.

Debra M. Kirby, Scholarships, Fellowships, and Loans 1996, 10th edition, Gale Research, Inc., Detroit, Michigan, 1995. ISBN 0-8103-9114-7 ($140.00). 769 pages. Covers domestic and international fellowships for graduate and post-doctoral students and faculty. The book includes approximately 4,000 listings organized alphabetically by sponsor, with a quick-reference chart. Previous editions by Norman and Marie Feingold, Bellman Publishing Company, Scholarships, Fellowships, and Loans. To order a copy, call 1-800-877-4253 or write to Gale Research, Inc., 835 Penobscot Building, Detroit, MI 48226-4094.

Clarence E. Lovejoy and Theodore S. Jones, College Scholarship Guide, Simon & Schuster, Inc., ???. 125 pages. Scholarships, fellowships, and loans from educational and fraternal groups, government, and industry.

Octameron Associates, Loans and Grants from Uncle Sam: Am I Eligible and for How Much?, 3rd edition, Octameron Associates, Alexandria, Virginia, September 1995. ISBN 1-57509-000-7 ($6.00). 72 pages. This book provides information about federal loan and grant programs for undergraduate students. It includes a worksheet for determining eligibility and estimating the size of your award, and a list of Title IV Institutional Codes for most colleges and universities. The book also provides explanations of eligibility, deferments, loan forgiveness, loan consolidation, and repayment schedules. To order this or other Octameron books, call 1-703-836-5480 or write to Octameron Associates, PO Box 2748, Alexandria, VA 22301.

Peterson's Scholarships, Grants, and Prizes 1997, Peterson's Guides, Princeton, New Jersey, 1996. ISBN 1-56079-696-0 ($24.95), ISBN 1-56079-734-7 (software only, $15 + $4.25 shipping). 501 pages. This book lists more than 770,000 awards from 1,900 sources. It comes with a very nice Windows scholarship database that provides the same information as in the book, but in a convenient, searchable format. (A Macintosh version is available upon request.) The software lets you enter a profile to find a list of awards that match your interests. The matching award sources can be sorted by name, deadline, number of awards, and award amount. You can select a source for more detailed information, such as the address and description. The only flaw with this book is the claim that it lists more than $2.5 billion in private aid. Peterson's calculated that figure by summing the product of the high award amount with the number of awards. This overestimates the total by at least a factor of seven. A more conservative estimate would place the total amount of private aid listed at about $500 million, which is still a considerable figure. The book also includes state-controlled scholarships and grants, in addition to private aid. Revised annually. To order a copy, call 1-800-EDU-DATA (1-800-338-3282) x660 or 1-609-243-9111 x660 (x462 for Spanish), fax 1-609-243-9150, write to Peterson's Guides, Dept. PWB, PO Box 2123, Princeton, NJ 08543-2123, or send email to custsvc@petersons.com.

Resource Guide to Student Financial Aid, 1st edition, Grayco Publishing, West Warwick, Rhode Island, 1990. $24.95 plus $1.40 postage and handling. Companion volume to The Federal Educational and Scholarship Funding Guide. Step by step instructions on how to get grants, loans, and scholarships. To order a copy, write to Grayco Publishing, PO Box 1291, West Warwick, RI 02893.

The Student Loan Forgiveness Directory, Fannie Mae Foundation and National College Scholarship Foundation, 1996. ($22.00 plus $3.00 shipping and handling). This book contains a list of institutional loan forgiveness programs. To order a copy, call 1-301-548-9423, fax 1-301-548-9453, or write to The National College Scholarship Foundation, PO Box 8207, Gaithersburg, MD 20898-8207.