Intended to offer a greater range of students access to various educational options, financial aid to schools and students comes in several forms. Private schools are maintained primarily by high tuition rates, but many private schools have endowments which allow them to offer partial or complete financial support to some of their students.

Public school education from kindergarten through 12th grade is free to students, and funding sources include revenues generated from local property taxes, allocations from the state based on levels of poverty, and monies from the federal government, usually in the form of grants for special needs. The Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965 included titles aimed at enhancing educational opportunities for “underprivileged” children, including Title I, which provides funds for the improvement of educational programs for students identified as educationally “at risk.” While K-12 public education is free, postsecondary education is not, and there is a range of financial aid possibilities available to students wishing to attend both public and private institutions beyond the high-school level. Three major financial aid sources are college scholarship money, drawn from endowments; grants or aid, which are a variation of loans with low to no interest; and work-study money from the Department of Labor, including Pell grants and Stafford loans. Application for aid is made through the colleges, each of which receives a particular allocation of loan money and colleges must adhere to various guidelines by which federal money is allocated and recipients selected.