What exactly is financial aid when referring to colleges?

I am Doing A paper for English on Career Choices... And it is asking me all these questions. I get the basic idea of financial aid, but what is is really?|||Financial aid is a very "broad" term used to describe any and ALL money you or your school gets on your behalf to help pay for your school and school related expenses (tuition, room board, fees, transportation, books, supplies, misc. almost anything really). Many people mistakenly think that "financial aid" only means free money like federal and state grants and scholarships people get for having great grades and awesome SAT/ACT scores and they don't realize that financial aid also includes loans, work study, and even parent loans. So not all financial aid is free. As a matter of fact, most of it has to be repaid.|||Financial aid is any type of money (whether it be a grant, loan, work study, etc) that is used on your behalf to cover the cost of college. The cost includes a lot more than just tuition, but also such things like textbook money, room and board, meal plans, transportation, etc.|||It's usually a combination of low cost loans, grants, and sometimes work/study programs.|||money for school