Good for you for filing!

Through the government and filling out FAFSA, they will determine if you can qualify for assistance: federal grants (such as Pell), and/or unsubsidized or subsidized loans. The loans do not have to be paid back until you graduate or leave school but the difference is that subsidized loans are loans the goverment does not require you to pay the interest on it while you are in school so that you don't have to pay anything during this time (ideal loan of the two); unsubsidized they do not pay the interest, interest accrues, and it must be paid while in school or can be deferred until graduation but accumulates the entire time you are in school.

Once FAFSA determines your level of need, the school will put together a financial aid package based on this information and will contact you that may include some or all of the above (loans, grants) plus any other additional grants and scholarships, which do not have to be paid back, free money so to speak to pay for school, supplies, and living expenses.

It is also important to contact the school or look online to find out if there are any other scholarships and grant monies that you might be able to apply for, some are department specific, from professional organizations, or from other organizations/clubs that you may also qualify for outside of the financial aid office from your field of study or interests that they can direct you too. Typically you have to fill out an application and write some kind of an essay or statement for these, which will say in the application how to proceed.

The reason it is important to file early, as soon as FAFSA allows you to file each year that you have all the information you need to file, is that cases are decided as they come in and monies become less available as time goes on before school starts as they put more and more packages together. It is decided on a first come, first serve basis, but if in need, there will always be come kind of financial aid package available to you.

I wish you well and hope you get the monies you need for school. Good luck in school.