Ultimate College Financial Aid Quiz

According to the College Board, the average cost for the 2009-2010 school year at a private four-year college was $26,273.

According to Forbes magazine, the most expensive college for the 2008-09 academic year was George Washington University.

The 2008-09 school year at GWU cost $40,437, and tuition is only going up, up, up.

Two-thirds of all college students received some kind of financial aid in 2007-08.

The average financial aid award was $10,185 -- about half in grant aid and half in federal loans.

According to the College Board, 53 percent of college students go to four-year schools with tuitions less than $9,000.

According to the College Board, 66 percent had some kind of education debt, and 10 percent had borrowed $40,000 or more.

There's $168 billion in financial aid up for grabs.

Completing the Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA) is the first step in the process. It examines your family's finances and eventually will give you the amount you're expected to contribute to your college education.

This is an easy one -- grants don't have to be paid back.

The maximum Pell Grant for the 2008-09 school year was $4,731, and about 25 percent of students qualified for the full amount.

Pell Grants are based on financial need. In the application process, they'll formulate an EFC (expected family contribution). The amount awarded is figured from the EFC and some other factors, like if you're going to be a full- or part-time student.

Stafford and Perkins are the two biggies.

The bill allows students to take out an extra $2,000 a year in Stafford loans.

Yes, that's true. You start paying it back -- with interest -- as soon as you leave school.

Both the Stafford and Perkins programs require you to pay back the loan within 10 years.

There are many, many benefits of 529 plans -- one of the biggest is that you don't pay taxes on the account's earnings.

Sounds too good to be true, but it's a fact. You can prepay tuition at qualified schools in the state in which your 529 plan is based.

The limit is still pretty high, but it's $268,000, not $368,000.

Most work-study programs require about 10 to 15 hours on the job every week.