The Louisiana Office of Student Financial Assistance (LOSFA) is a Program of the Louisiana Board of Regents, administering the state’s scholarship and grant programs and the state’s Internal Revenue Code Section 529 college savings program. Among the programs administered by LOSFA are Louisiana’s premier merit-based scholarship program, the Taylor Opportunity Program for Students (TOPS); the state’s 529 college savings plan, the Student Tuition Assistance and Revenue Trust (START) program; the Rockefeller State Wildlife Scholarship program and the Louisiana Achieving a Better Life Experience Act (LA ABLE).
LA Able is a program, which allows families to save for disability related expenses of their loved ones. The advantage of this program is that it allows the family to save without worrying about whether the assets in an account will be counted as an asset for purposes of determining eligibility for federal and state benefits programs such as Medicaid and Social Security.
LOSFA is active in the dissemination of college access information within the state with a concentration on assisting students from low-income families and first generation college attendees in locating and obtaining the resources necessary to pursue and complete a postsecondary education. To these ends, LOSFA regularly collaborates with other entities including the Louisiana Board of Regents, the Louisiana Department of Education, the Gear Up and Trio programs,