My
tip to all the students and parents of students planning ahead for college:
Education is expensive, so GET FREE MONEY! Everyone knows about scholarships, but not a lot of people actually know how much free money is available. In my opinion, there has to be something for everyone if you try hard enough. But where should you start?
First
off, if you receive any mail from scholarship search services, always check if
they charge a fee. Don’t bother
going to any meetings because I once attended one, and it was a waste of time.
You shouldn’t have to pay for any service that you can find on your
own for free.
One
good place to go is to your college and career center at school, but remember
to get a head start. When I was
in high school, I never fully took advantage of this resource, and when I
finally realized how much information my school had, most of the deadlines for
scholarships had passed.
Another really great place to look is, not surprisingly, online. Once again, please keep in mind that you shouldn’t be paying for any search service. Instead, go to the popular free search engines such as fastweb.com, fastaid.com, collegenet.com, geoscholarships.com, back2college.com, or scholarships.com. Because most scholarships are looking for a particular type of student, these search engines create a personal profile for you and find only scholarships for which you qualify.
I
personally have only used fastweb.com, but remember the more, the merrier! The more searches you do, the more opportunities you might
find. The more scholarships you
apply to, the more likely you’ll get some free money. Private scholarships given out by schools, people, or
corporations are not usually large amounts.
I don’t think there are many full tuition scholarships out there, but
every little bit counts. Plus, it
all adds up.
I
must warn you that the process may seem quite tedious at first, but in the
end, your efforts will be well rewarded.
Think about it this way: If you spend five hours filling out five
applications, and you get the smallest scholarship-usually about $500- then
you just made a $100 an hour. Not bad (You won’t find a job that pays much
better than that!). And if you get larger awards, or multiple awards, you will be
very grateful when the first few college bills start coming in the mail.
My parents always told me that knowledge is
priceless, and they are right. But
the only thing that beats going to a good school is going to a good school and
not paying for it. It’s never too early to start looking around.
When you make it big, don’t forget to give back and help those who
will be your future. Good luck
and let the money start coming in!