Financial Aid Forms

• The Parents’ Financial Statement. You can ask the schools to which you’re applying to send you a printed Parents’ Financial Statement (PFS). You'll also find other helpful forms at sss.nais.org.

Loan Service

• There are companies that offer tuition-loan services especially for kindergarten through 12^th grade are NAIS associate members (called corporate subscribers). Click here for a list.
• In addition, the school to which you’re applying may have preferred loan companies, perhaps connected with its tuition-payment plan. Ask the schools about this.

Merit Aid/Scholarships

• NAIS has compiled a list of outside scholarship resources (unaffiliated with particular schools) that you can search by state.
• In addition, the schools to which you’re applying may have a list of organizations that provide scholarships. Ask them about this.         

Payment Plans

• A payment plan may make tuition easier to manage by allowing you to pay monthly instead of in one or two lump sums. 
• Typically, payment plans are coordinated between a financial services company and individual schools and offered to families for a relatively small fee. Ask the schools to which you apply if they recommend certain plans or providers.
• In addition, NAIS has compiled a list of payment plan companies.

Other Helpful Sources

Although most people associate education savings accounts with preparing for higher education, the Coverdell Education Savings Account is a tax-friendly account that families can use for K-12 private school expenses. Learn more from these two sources:

• For a user-friendly, non-commercial source of information about the Coverdell Education Savings Account, click here: http://finaid.org/savings/coverdell.phtml.
• For basic information from the most reliable source, see the IRS publication “Tax Benefits for Education.”  Read carefully, however; the publication covers more than just the Coverdell, and the other tuition-related tax breaks are almost all related to college expenses.