Scholarships

http://www.fafsa.ed.gov/

you start here. Every college bases their aid on this application. This application also approves you/him for federal student loans and pell grants

Thank you so much for asking this question.
My son is a junior and he wants to go to the art institute in chicago....23.ooo a year !!!!!
Crazy, but reality......;)

Our daughter is out of state and living on campus. She applied through the FAFSA forms..

Has your son taken his SAT exams? It is given through the College Boards. They will also offer online form to apply for scholarships and grants. Our daughter applied to 9 colleges and they all automatically try to match the students based on their needs with financial aid. be sure to always mark forms to make it clear you do want financial aide. Our daughters current college is very old and had a huge endowment, 80% of the students have some sort of scholarship..

You AND your son need to fill out all of these forms. He needs to be familiar with all of your financial information because once he is in college he will need to be able to answer any financial questions they have.. They will also contact you, but he is the first person they contact..

To get organized, gather your last years tax information, your checking acct numbers, your savings account information, your property tax info.. When you do your Income taxes in Jan.. get them done ASAP so you can have that information ready to send in with his applications.. They need 2 years worth of info..

Does your sons high school have a guidance counselor for seniors and their parents? They are a great resource. If they offer any information nights or events.. GO to them and take your questions.. They offer great advice..

There's no limit as to the number of scholarships a person can apply for. I know one girl who regularly applies for over 200 every year (to win about 10% of them). Which gave her a "free ride" all though school. I myself write to about 50-75 every year (that's all I have the time to write the essays for). A lot of them are "dinky" ones. $100 here, $500 there, $250 from another. Low scholarships tend to have fewer applicants = a greater chance of winning them.

As a BASE, check out www.fastweb.com. But FW will only give you a percentage of the scholarships out there. If you don't tick a box that indicates you're affiliated with the Masons, their scholarships won't pull up. Even if their scholarships are open to everyone. But FW should pull up at least 20-30 scholarships he does qualify for. It's a free service / paid for via advertising. Just untick the box that says "messages from our affiliates" or you'll get tons and tons of spam.

There is a GIANT book published each year (6"-9" thick, bible thin paper) that lists all published scholarships. It's tedius to go through them, but one can find several hundred that one qualifies for.

REGARDLESS he'll need to fill out a FAFSA http://www.fafsa.ed.gov/

Don't knock student loans either. At 1.4 - 3.5 % interest paid off over 10-30 years, that makes the money recieved from them / the interest about the same as inflation. AKA free money. And the debt is calculated differently than any other kind of debt out there. Also, the repayment is super low. My husband pays about $80 a month on 40k of student loans, as does my BFF who has over 150k in student loans. I pay more than either of them on my measly 2k, but that's because the higher the loans... the longer one has to repay them. Loans aren't repaid while in school (I'm on a 6mo break from school, so while I COULD defer them, I'm choosing to pay them).

The whole process takes ages. One always applies the year PRIOR for funding (scholarships, grants, loans)... and a lot of deadlines for next year are Dec-March... so just a few more months.

I'm just starting to ask many of these same questions myself.

As far as scholarships go, a good place to start is your school's guidance dept. You can apply for as many scholarships as you'd like, there's no limit. Do you or your husband belong to any fraternal organizations or labor unions? They often have scholarships available.

I work with FAFSA every day.

Just want to throw a reply about FAFSA.COM - do NOT use that website!!
They charge you $80 for what is a free application.

Go to www.fafsa.ed.gov

First things first. Complete the 2011-2012 FAFSA when it becomes available at the end of December. You'll have to use your 2009 federal tax returns and W2's. Complete it by January 1st as many schools have a deadline and yes, some are that early.

Once you complete your 2010 taxes you'll go back to correct any information.

If your child worked but did not file a tax return you'll still need their W2 information.

You can include up to ten school codes on the FAFSA.

What you're looking for is the EFC - expected family contribution.

The lower the number the more likely you'll be grant eligible. Let me know if you need more info.

Talk to the guidance counselor at the high school, the financial aid department at the schools he's thinking about, if he knows his major talk to that department. All of them are used to fielding these types of calls and will help you find the scholarships he can apply for.

There are lots of things you can do to cut down on costs. State schools are so much cheaper than private (and just as good). Purchase as many used textbooks as possible using barnesandnoble.com and amazon.com (I'm sure there are other websites as well).

It might even be worth it to have him take one year off of school after high school to work and save money. He could begin college at 19. He wouldn't be the only one.

Go to your guidance counselors and they can help you get started.

My daughter is in 10th grade and we are already visiting colleges, checking out what they have available that matches daughters wants/needs.

There are many scholarships and grants available for those who look for them and deserve them. It does take some work and effort but you can find funds available. There are also MANY that are never awarded because people don't ask.

What are his SAT scores, where does he excel, what is he interested in.

I also believe that living on campus is a great experience for a college student. I would not trade my college experience for anything in the world. I loved it.

I strongly suggest that you do start saving now. We anticipate our daughter's college to be a minimum of $60,000 per year. We started her college fund when she was born so she would be funded. It is hard to sock that money away but it is so important.

EDIT: Our daughter will NOT be expected to "pay back" anything we did for her education. We feel it is our parental duty to get her out of college debt free.

Best wishes to you!

Your son can get scholarship information from the guidance counselor at his school and from the admissions office of colleges. He should've been getting this information at school for some time now. Does he want to go to college?

Commuting to school is an excellent way to get started. One doesn't have to jump into the whole experience at the start. Commuting is especially a good way to start if he's uncertain about even wanting to go. He can combine school with a job which will also help with the cost.

Perhaps it would be best for him to work for a year before starting college. I did that because I lacked money. I put myself thru college. I've been reading that it's more difficult to do so now but I believe that it's important for the student to pay for a substantial portion of his education.

There are government scholarships and grants available. Research them online.

I suggest that the first thing your son needs to do is to decide how he wants to get started. He can take basic classes at a community college. Decide which one he wants to attend and then inquire of them how to get started. You can do the first steps via the Internet.

My daughter decided on a medical career, after taking basic classes at a community college, and went to a private school. She got a certificate and became a medial assistant with x-ray in a year. She lived at home at first. The private school helped her to get grants and loans.

FAFSA.COM is where you want to start. They offer all kinds of different types of scholarships and financial aid. There are different types of loans your son can get,depending on income. My daughter is almost done with College. She has always been in AVID and they helped her with fafsa. She was living on campus for the first two years, her dad paid for that but then she didn't like staying on campus. She commuted from home but she has gotten some scholarships thru her dads job and loans thru fafsa. My 17 yo will start College next yr as well and he is also in AVID and doing FAFSA. He is already applying to all the Universities. Good luck to us! He'll be fine and will find something.

He should be able to apply for as many as he meets the qualifications for and completes the applications for. When I was applying for college (which was like 8 years ago), I applied for more scholarships then I could think of. Some schools will automatically review your son for scholarships in the application process and some will require a seperate application, so make sure that you look into that when he is applying. There are several websites that have different databases of scholarships. I think if you go to collegeboard.com, they might be able to at least direct you to some of the ones used now.

I will tell you on a seperate note that I loved being able to live on campus my first year and away from my parents for all that time, but if I could go back and do it again, I would've gone to a community college first and done my basics. Then I would've done two years in a regularly university completing my degree. College is becoming very expensive now, even with state schools (I have said it before, but by the time I graduated from my state school, tuition increased almost 130% from my freshman year). On top of this, I wanted to go to grad school and spent a large amount of money on that, even with a scholarship. I had VERY little money saved for college and now have about 100,000 in student loans to pay back (which they are working to make easier to pay back, but that amount is never easy). My amount is a little more extreme, but the average is starting to get closer to the amount that I owe then the typical 10-15 that you used to hear about. So sometimes it's better to just look at the reality of the situation and decide what is going to be the better option in the long run (staying on campus freshman year and paying a large amount of money for housing or commuting and having less to potentially pay back later).

M.,
I am a college guidance counselor and I work with my seniors all year on finding scholarships. The first place to look is the actual colleges to which your son is applying. Most of them offer freshmen scholarships. You will also want to check out the following websites: www.fastweb.com and www.scholarships.com Those are the best that I have found. DON'T EVER PAY for a scholarship search service - it's usually a scam!
You will also want to file the Free Application for Federal Student Aid. You can do this on-line at www.fafsa.ed.gov You won't be able to file until after January 1st for the 2011-2012 school year. Your son's guidance counselor should have information about this...
There is a lot of money out there for college....you just have to do a little leg work to get it!
Good luck!
J.

Be sure you complete the FAFSA to determine what aid he may qualify for and also based upon the household income he may qualify for grants too. My son was a senior last year and I too did the panic thing wondering how we would pay for college. I wanted him to go local too but of course he wanted to go to U Of M Ann Arbor and wanted to stay on campus which I couldn't deny him cause I wanted him to have the experience etc. Luckily my son did get a grant which helped some but everything else is loans which is unavoidable unless you get those scholarships or have a ton of money put away in which who does these days. Be sure he is checking FASTWEB.COM and SCHOLARSHIPS.COM for those schlolarships. I think my son would have gotten something if he was more on the ball but of course they are teenagers and slack and then deadlines passed of course. The highschool even gives out small ones based on their grades, sports, pta etc so have him look into applying for whatever they may offer. Does he play any sports? The school counselors should be there to help as well but they were horrible at my son's school. I know it's stressful but we all find ways to make it work. What's horrible though is these poor kids have those god awful loans to repay by the time they do graduate college. It doesn't help that the economy is horrible here in Michigan either.
Best of luck to you.

You know your son and which experiece will be best for him. Talk immediately to his school counselor about scholarships and financial aid.

High school counselors can help to point the right direction. Remember also, my friend, that there are also grants he might qualify for. MEAP scores are used towards tuition.
And if you go online, or he does, look for scholarships. Lots of times they will be attached to what sounds like silly majors, but it's worth a try.
And have your youngest start looking into it now. No reason to wait till the last moment. Find a school that will best meet the needs. And if they can't decide where they want to go, what they want to major in, the military does offer freebies galor and the trade off is 4 years minimum of your life. What that would allow is training in certain lucrative fields, which would pay off big time later. You earn a paycheck, you get health, vision, dental insured. Housing and food. That's all the freebies. And in the meantime you earn college credits and can think about what you would major in in college when you get out. Lots of positives. And the economy as it is, it is a viable option. When everyone else faces unemployment, you're training and earning a paycheck. Win win situation.
But check out with the counselors, grants, and online. And another option is to go to a community college and get the basics out of the way while deciding on a major at a university. The basics would be required anyway at university, so it'll cost less at a community college, there still is the college experience although on a lesser basis, and the opportunity to work at the same time. Again it can be a win win situation. Yassou!

Hi M.---Another thought about how to pay for your son's education. My husband and I were blessed to be able to cash in stock options for our oldest's education. She is going to repay half of her educational costs when she gets a career related, living wage job.

Our second started school with the same agreement. However, he apparently was distracted by all the college has to offer besides book learning. Lots of money was wasted for that year. As of right now, college is not for him and he is a successful management employee of Walgreens at the age of 24. He still does need to pay us back for his first year's tuition.

For our youngest, who is in his second year at Mi State, we took another route. Ian is taking out loans for all of his educational needs. After his brother, we decided that the kids need to be vested in the success. We have agreed to help Ian repay his loans, if his grades reflect a pre-determined standard.

I think that we don't necessarily have to pay for our children's educations. It is something that they need to do in order to get further ahead in this world. They should have a vested interest in their future and paying for their own college should be a part of that, particularly if finances are tight. This way, you'll have a bit more time to start getting money together to help him pay his loans once he is finished with school. Depending on your financial status, you might even qualify for loans that do not accrue interest until after he graduates.

Another thought. What you want your son to do and what he wants to do may be 2 totally different things. This is a time for a family discussion and goals and plans to achieve those goals. Have your younger son be a part of this as well. He will have more time to make sure his grades and participation are such that will increase his chances of getting good scholarships. Good luck. D.

M.,

Make sure your son takes the cost of college into account. He may want to go to Princeton, but may not be able to pay off the loans if his degree is in teaching or forestry.

Here's what my husband did to get through college at Michigan State University and graduated without any loans:

1. He went to a community college to cover all of the early requirements at half the cost.

2. His first year at MSU he lived in a fraternity and then later shared an apartment and a house with friends. Many times his living space was very small - in one case a closet, because that was all he could afford on a monthly basis.

3. He worked two and sometimes three jobs each semester and paid off his yearly FAFSA loan at the end of the year from the money he had earned.

The biggest benefit from his plan - he had ZERO loans to pay off when he graduated from college with a masters degree. He still went out with friends from time to time, but he didn't go drinking every weekend. He took a good look at his finances and created a monthly living budget so he could afford college each and every year.

The reason I'm posting this is to point out that accumulating a large amount of debt for school is not necessary. My husband values his education because of all the work he put in to afford his degree.

Good luck finding scholarships.

C. J.

If your son hasn't submitted all his college apps, encourage him to do so right away (even if you're still deciding between a community college and a 4-yr school). Many schools start looking at their scholarship candidates from their admitted student pool as early as December (applying now will give him a better chance to be in the admitted student pool in December).
Also, take a look at what his top choices require you to submit in order to be eligible for financial aid. Some schools in Michigan, including UM and some privates, require you to submit the CSS Profile in addition to the FAFSA. He won't be considered for aid at those schools until he has submitted both forms.
Look at the big corporations and have him apply to those scholarships too - Coke, Pepsi, McDonald's, Gates Millenium, etc.
Good luck!

M.,

I have two sons in college right now and can speak from experience about "the college experience". My oldest son started at a community college and has since transferred to a vocational college out of state. Some of his community college credits transferred to the other school. He is very focused and doing well there. My younger son started out his freshman year at MSU and chose to commute. Even though he was an all A student in high school he really struggled his first year at college. Many of the classes were huge, the instructors foreign and difficult to understand, it was hard to get in touch with professors to get help, and he really didn't do as well as we thought he should given his ability. Since then I have talked to other people and even college instructors who thought it would have been better for him to go to community college first for basics then transfer to the larger university. I'm starting to think that wasn't such a bad idea. Because they both had paid college tuition through the Michigan Education Trust we just naturally enrolled our younger son at State as he had been accepted there. Our older son did very well at the community college and his education has been on track with his goals. Maybe it is too early yet to say if living on campus adds to the educational experience or not, the jury is still out in our case, but both our sons have stayed focused completely on their studies, in other words, they aren't out partying. I really believe that community colleges are a good way to start and nothing is lost in the "college experience" by staying home to go to school. The clubs and programs are still there for the taking if they want to participate even if they live off-campus. As a parent, it's easier for you to see how much they are studying, ask what's going on everyday and although you don't have access to grades unless they allow it, you can at least get a feel for how things are going that first year or two. Because of their paid tuitions through MET we did not apply for scholarships or student loans and I see other posters have given you some good information on that. I can tell you, however, that nothing is lost in staying home for awhile.

S.

M. ~
Your son's high school counselor should have tons of information about scholarships. And the school should have a college night for the parents so that you can get more information.
When my son was in school, we planned on him going to community college. But he scored very well on his ACT test that we also applied at Eastern, U of M Dearborn & Wayne State. U of M & Eastern had a testing process for their scholarships, and Wayne State awarded a full scholarship just based on his test score.
Good Luck!
D.

Sorry, I didn't read everyone else's responses before adding my own.
Your son can apply for any scholarship that he qualifies for. His high school counselor should be able to tell him about scholarships, as well as the school he plans to attend. I went to college out of state, but just as an example I earned two scholarships as an entering freshmen: one from the community where I grew up and one from the college department that I was entering. The scholarships weren't much, but every little bit helps. And I've met people who paid for their entire tuition, room & board and books through earning multiple scholarships...so definitely worth the time!

Have him register at www.fastweb.com and www.scholarships.com. They will give information on private scholarships for which he qualifies. He can apply for as many as he wants. There is no limit.

Each individual school will tell you about the scholarships available when he does the financial aid paperwork (FAFSA). Watch the deadlines because some have a February deadline for the FAFSA paperwork and if you don't get it in in time, he will become ineligible to apply for the individual school scholarships. Note that completing the FAFSA may require you to have your taxes done or estimated early.