Several books have been published that provide printed guides to the best sites on the World Wide Web. This page contains excerpts from reviews of the Financial Aid Information Page that were published in such books.

Eric Braun, The Internet Directory, 2nd Edition, Fawcett Columbine, New York, 1996.

4154 FinAid^®: The Financial Aid Information Page. "A comprehensive resource for student financial aid information, it includes an online searchable database of financial aid resources; loan calculators; points to other financial aid resources on the Web; and much more."

Dan Corrigan, The Internet University, Cape Software, 1996.

Page 107. This book, and its companion web site, provide information about online college courses. It mentions the Financial Aid Information Page as a key resource for financial aid information, giving an overview of the resources on the page, and highlighting the "financial aid estimation utility that generates a picture of your academic financial needs".

Kristin Davis, Financing College, Kiplinger Times Business, 1996.

Page 180. College Resources on the Internet. "Mark Kantrowitz, a computer-science graduate student at Carnegie Mellon University, has compiled a staggering amount of information about financial aid, student loans, scholarships and other topics of interest to college students and their parents - with links to college financial-aid offices, state aid agencies, the Department of Education's student-aid guide, instructions for filling out financial-aid forms, and much more."

David Farrell, CyberHound's Web Guide 1997, Visible Ink Press, 1996.

CyberHound gave the FinAid^® Page a four-bone rating, the highest rating.

Page 394. The Financial Aid Information Page (FinAid^®). "If Daddy Warbucks isn't going to fund your half-a-dozne-or-so-year adventure to Somewhere University and your newspaper route will not cover even the bus far, you had better start investigating financial aid. Don't depend on your school counselor to know squat; this is the one you need to do for yourself. There are multitudes of ways to squeeze money out of institutions both private and public. The FinAid^® Page is just the ticket to make sure you can find a bunch of them. Don't skip college, live at home, and flip burgers. Read one section, read them all! Loans, grants, etc. are not all dependent on ethnicity, grades, area of interest or whatever. If you look hard and long enough, you will find the money. This page helps you hit every possibility. net gain: If you are interested in college whatsoever and money makes a difference, this is required reading. net loss: How about applications online? Updated as needed."

David Filo and Jerry Yang, Yahoo! Unplugged: Your Discovery Guide to the Web, IDG Books, 1995.

Page 209. Financial Aid Information. "This page provides links to dozens of sources of information on obtaining financial aid. It also features fastWEB, Financial Aid Search Through the Web, at no cost. This searchable database contains information on more than 180,000 private sector grants, loans, and scholarships. Try out the financial aid estimation form, which performs an instant need analysis that will give you a general idea of your ability to pay for college."

Eric Gagnon, What's On The Web, Internet Media Corporation, Fall/Winter 1995/1996.

Jump 2054. Paying for College. "There are numerous grant, loan, and other college financial aid programs available. The problem has been finding them. Mark Kantrowitz, author of a book on financial aid for math and science students, provides the means to locate potential sources of aid and how to apply for it with this list of links. Included are links to databases of aid programs, specific aid and grant programs, college financial aid offices, and informational documents. Each link has a brief description to help you find the most useful information for you."

Alfred and Emily Glossbrenner, Internet 101, A College Student's Guide, 3rd edition, McGraw-Hill, 1996.

Pages 266-267. Financial aid information. "Wouldn't it just kill you to work your way through grad school, only to discover on graduation day that there was a grant or scholarship you could have gotten that would have considerably eased your burden? That's why you owe it to yourself to tap info "FinAid^® - The Financial Aid Information Page" (Fig. 20-1) created and maintained by Mark Kantrowitz at Carnegie Mellon University. ... As you can perhaps tell from the small portion of the Web page shown in Fig. 20-1, FinAid^® is packed with information about loans, grants, scholarships, fellowships - you name it. You'll also find links to the financial aid offices at specific colleges and universities, along with features like "Mark's FinAid^® Calculators", "Scam Alert", and "Ask the Aid Advisor". There's even a link to a free service called FastWEB, a searchable database of more than 180,000 source of private sector funding. You'll wish you had discovered this site before you began your undergraduate program!"

Harley Hahn, Internet and Web Yellow Pages, Osborne/McGraw-Hill, 1997.

Page 217. Financial Aid. Want some free money or even some cheap money? Get the scoop on how to pay your way through college by filling out forms for money. The web page has information about student financial aid, information about specialized schools like grad school, law school, and medical school. The Usenet discussion group is a place where you can ask questions, talk or gripe about financial aid and your experiences. My advice is to get as much free money as you can, and borrow as little as possible.

Web: http://www.finaid.org/
Usenet: soc.college.financial-aid

Kenneth E. Hartman, Internet Guide for College-Bound Students, College Board Publications, 1996.

Pages 107, 109, 113, 115, and 170. "This award-winning site, called FinAid^®, provides excellent links to Internet sources of information about student financial aid. It is maintained by Mark Kantrowitz, a graduate student at Carnegie-Mellon University. Don't miss this site!"

R. F. Holznagel, editor, World Wide Web Top 1000, New Riders Publishing, 1996.

The Financial Aid Information Page was rated as one of the top 1000 web sites in this book by Point Communications. Their review appears on page 422.

Financial Aid Information. "College grant and loan information doesn't come any straighter than this index, maintained by Mark Kantrowitz of Carnegie Mellon University. ... Students of all ages will appreciate these plain-vanilla links ... Direct links to fellowship databases will be of particular interest to grad students, and the grants and scholarship pages go on for days. ... A ton of good info here."

Anna Leider and Robert Leider, Don't Miss Out: The Ambitious Student's Guide to Financial Aid", Octameron Associates, 1996.

Page 13. "For an overview of all the financial aid information in cyberspace, spend some time with Mark Kantrowitz at http://www.finaid.org. His site links to numerous resources including student aid publications, student aid organizations, scholarship databases and contact information for financial aid offices. ... Your best bet is to visit Mark Kantrowitz (see address above) and learn to use one of the many search engines to pinpoint the company or type of information you need."

Luckman's Official World Wide Web Yellow Pages, Barnes & Noble, 1997.

This book (and CD-ROM) reviews 10,000 web sites, and rates them for content, design, and flow (organization). Luckman also estimates the average speed of access using 28.8 kbps modems. The FinAid^® Page received two reviews from Luckman, both receiving five "planet" ratings for content and four planet ratings overall:

Financial Aid Information Page (page 79). "Maintained and created by Mark Kantrowitz, author of "The Prentice Hall Guide to Scholarships and Fellowships for Math and Science Students", this extensive compilation of financial aid, scholarship, and fellowship information resources provides users with a thorough list of links. Included are the Scam Alert, FAQs, Mark's Picks, Glossary, University Financial Aid Offices, Scholarship Search Services, Student Aid Crisis, and more. This is an excellent resource."

Mark's Financial Aid Calculators (page 81). "Parents and students will find this page to be a worthwhile tool for determining education costs. Each calculator consists of a blank form requestion information such as interest rate, income, and investment duration. It then computes loan costs, compares different loans, and projects a college savings plan. Part of the Financial Aid Information Page, this site leads the user to other financial aid information repositories. This site is a must for those interested in managing the cost of their college education."

Kelly Maloni, Ben Greenman, Kristin Miller, and Jeff Hearn, NetGuide, 2nd Edition, Michael Wolff & Company and Random House, 1995.

Page 560. Annotated Bibliography of Financial Aid Resource Materials. "A guide to resources that will get you through the college process without selling the house and car. Both government and private sources are listed and evaluated."

Page 561. Financial Aid Offices. "Links to the financial aid and admissions offices of several American colleges and universities. You can also access information on scholarships, fellowships and grants, or retrieve a bibliography of resources for offline reading on college funding."

Page 561. Funding Graduate School. "If there is anything harder than paying for college, it's paying for graduate school. This is a list of graduate school funding options."

Scholarships, Fellowships, and Grants. "A collection of fellowship opportunities prepared by major universities. The fellowship listings may be repetitious, but it is nevertheless worthwhile to study each school's catalogue for little-known yet lucrative programs. Keep in mind that the clearinghouse nature of the project yields uneven results: while some universities merely list opportunities, other have taken the time to build searchable databases. The University of Kansas, for instance, has a particularly useful listing, with fellowships organized by deadline."

Kelly Maloni, Ben Greenman, and Stevan Keane, NetCollege 1997, 1st Edition, Michael Wolff & Company and Random House, 1996.

Page 34. Free Money 101. The Internet is a great place to go for the basic information you'll need to arm yourself against the Financial Aid Dragon. Don't miss Financing College or FinAid^®: The Financial Aid Information Page for starters. When the acronyms grow overwhelming, clear your head and increase your vocabulary at the Glossary of Financial Aid Terms. What's your EFC IQ? Zero? Join Mensa with Expected Family Contribution.

Page 34. FinAid^®: The Financial Aid Information Page. Just remember that time is money: you'll have to allot yourself plenty of the former while checking out this site if you want to score lots of the latter in terms of financial aid for college. Some of the many resources available here are: a form for electronically submitting questions to financial aid advisors; a glossary of financial aid terms; calculation tools for determining how much your family will be asked to contribute to college expenses; and how much aid you'll need. This stie also has links to other financial aid resources on the Web, including sources of scholarships/fellowships, grants, loans, and tuition payment plans. Links are further cataloged according to special interest grousp (i.e., students with disabilities, students from minority backgrounds, older students). A good place to start at this extensive site would probably be Mark's Picks, a selection of the best/most popular financial aid sites.

Page 36. FinAid^® FAQ. Rather than waiting around for it to be reposted on the college and education newsgroups, you can come here to read the latest update of the FAQ on Financial Aid, Scholarships, and Fellowships. The questions and answers provided here give the lowdown on getting - or not getting - money for school. You might not yet understand how PC = (EPC + (n-1) x $500)/n, or what that means about financing your college education, but you will soon: just let the FAQ demystify the process for you. The FAQ offers advice and warnings, and also has sections for foreign students and the issue of the taxability of financial aid.

Page 45. University Financial Aid Office Web Pages. This subsection of FinAid^®: The Financial Aid Information Page is worth noting for students with specific college destinations. Search by college/university name to be connected to institution-specific pages dealing with financial aid for students.

Page 55. Financial Aid Jokes and Anecdotes. Proving that there really is humor in everything, this collection of financial aid jokes and anecdotes is probably best to look at when you've been contemplating financial aid for so long that the FAFSA and SAR seem nothing less than an incomprehensible alphabet soup. Particularly entertaining are the top ten lists for entering the financial aid field. From "Top Ten Reasons to Work in Financial Aid" - "No. 9: Sometimes, you get to make people cry."

New Riders' Official Internet Yellow Pages, Summer/Fall 1996 Edition.

The review of the Financial Aid Information Page appears on page 163.

"The Financial Aid Information Page offers a collection of financial aid information on the Internet. Includes links to all online scholarship and fellowship databases and information about grants and loans, as well as links to university financial aid web and gopher servers and a link to the online version of Octameron Associate's book."

Bryan Pfaffenberger, World Wide Web Bible, 2nd Edition, MIS:Press, 1996.

Page 450. **** FinAid^®: The Financial Aid Information Page. "Maintained by Mark Kantrowitz, author of The Prentice Hall Guide to Scholarships and Fellowships for Math and Science Students, this site is an incredible compendium of resources for financing your education, including grants, scholarships, loans, fellowships, information for foreign students, university financial aid offices, government resources, links to search services and much, much more. If you (or your kid) is in college or about to be, you probably can't afford to not visit this site.

Robert L. Richardson, web.guide, Sybex, 1995.

Page 97. Financial Aid Information. "Mark Kantrowitz is the co-author of the Prentice Hall Guide to Scholarships and Fellowships for Math and Science Students; he knows whereof he links."

Kevin Savetz, editor, Microsoft Bookshelf Internet Directory, 1996-97 edition, Microsoft Press, 1996.

This book contains a printed directory and CD-ROM of 5,000 resources on the Internet, including web pages, mailing lists, and newsgroups. The marketing blurb on the back cover says that "unlike most other Internet directories, this book brings you only the best - the hand-picked creme de la creme". The book includes a review of the Financial Aid Information Page on page 200:

Financial Aid Information
Audience: high school seniors and college students looking for financial aid

"This site contains numerous resources for new and returning students looking for financial aid information. Located at Carnegie-Mellon University, this site has a variety of resources, including a FAQ, bibliography, related mailing lists, and phone numbers of financial aid organizations, as well as extensive lists of scholarships, grants, and loans. Also helpful is the scam alert area, which educates users about false claims and bogus student aid offers."

Patrick Vincent, Free Stuff from the World Wide Web, Coriolis Group Books, 1995.

Buddy Can You Spare a College Education?

"Were it not for financial aid programs (or deep pockets from Mom and Dad), a college education would be only a dream to many. Here's a site that's making it easier for the college-bound of today to become the college grads of tomorrow.

Helping to cut through the bureaucratic red tape, the Financial Aid Information page will answer many of the questions needy students have about the application process, loan information, loan alternatives, and much more. This site is also great for financial aid administrators who need to keep abreast of the latest aid information."

Mitzi Waltz and Steve Schultz, Internet International Directory 1997, Que/Lycos Press, 1996.

Pages 202-203. The FinAid^® Page. "If it's time for college, it's time for this page. You can find a lender, get in touch with your school's financial aid office, compare options, read the regulations, and use some nifty software to calculate just how much you'll be in debt for when school's over."