|
Welcome to the Parent Zone
 Whether you have a child planning for, currently attending, or graduating from college, College Zone can help you help them.
Click on the appropriate link (at left) to identify your child’s current grade or experience level.
Parent Message Board
The Parent Message Board is updated each week. New messages for the week are identified by the  symbol. Items under the More section, located toward the bottom of the page, provide links to information on topics that were recently listed on this Message Board.
In order to perform required maintenance, some U.S. Department of Education (ED) Web sites will be temporarily unavailable at various times on Sunday, November 23rd. Impacted Web sites may include FAFSA on the Web, Federal Student Aid PIN, FAFSA4caster, and NSLDS Student Access. Routine Web site maintenance that occurs each weekend will be completed per the standard schedule.
College Zone's College Cost Calculator, which provides an estimate of how much college may cost when a student is ready to attend, has been updated to reflect annual costs for the 2008-09 academic year.
Parents of college-bound students are reminded that the Financial Aid Package Comparison Worksheet, which is available via the How and When to Apply for Financial Aid (Calendar) page of the Parent Zone, is a useful tool when determining which college(s) the student may be able to attend.
The 2008-09 College Illinois!(SM) general enrollment period is open. This 529 prepaid tuition plan allows you to pay for tuition and fees now, protecting you against future tuition inflation. General enrollment continues through April 30, 2009.
Now is a good time for high school seniors planning to start college in the fall of 2009, and their parents, to apply for a Personal Identification Number (PIN) to be used in January when completing the Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA).
More
U.S. Department of Education's Federal Aid First
List of ISAC's Participating Lenders
State & Federal Aid Estimator
Federal Student Aid's FAFSA4caster
| 
