Scholarship News

If you have not discovered it yet, you will soon discover that the costs of sending your son or daughter to college have skyrocketed in recent years. The charges being assessed for housing would lead you to believe that the dorm includes servants and room service, and the cost of textbooks would make you think that they are getting original autographed copies. Yes, the cost of college is probably greater than the gross national product of some third world countries, and no matter how carefully you analyze the costs so that you can budget for it, it is virtually guaranteed that your estimates are going to fall far short.

Hopefully you have not encouraged your son or daughter to not consider college. A college education is a necessity in today’s cruel hard world, and not having a college education almost guarantees a struggle through life. Life is hard enough as it is, why complicate matters? For economic reasons, you may have encouraged your son or daughter to seriously consider a local community college instead of the brand-name state university. But I would urge you to reconsider that suggestion, since you of course want to be able to give your son or daughter every possible advantage that they could have, and the education that they get at the four-year state university or brand name college is almost certainly going to better than the local community college. You are saying fine, but how can I afford it?

The overall total cost of sending your son or daughter to the college that provides the BEST education for them should not be the deciding factor. The reason I say this is because there is a truckload of college scholarships and grants available that your son or daughter CAN qualify for. Maybe some of these are only a couple hundred bucks where others will cover the costs of the whole enchilada. There is not any kind of quota or limit on the number of scholarships that your son or daughter can apply for and be awarded. It is important to note that while you can almost certainly qualify for a student loan for your child, a student loan needs to be paid back after graduation, whereas a college scholarship or college grant does NOT need to be paid back. This is a tremendous difference.

As you research the availability of college scholarships and college grants, be fully aware that like most things, there are scams out there. You should never be required to pay a fee simply to find out if you qualify for a particular scholarship. While it happens, this requirement is rare and should be avoided, or at least looked at very carefully. And despite popular beliefs and myths, college scholarships and college grants are not only awarded to the top football player, the star soccer player, the musical genius, etc. Nor is award determination based solely on financial need as it was in years past. A majority of scholarships simply require the student to apply for them!

There are tons of college scholarships and college grants available, all of them totaling well into the hundreds of thousands of dollars. One of the almost ludicrous facts about this is that a large number of these scholarships and grants do not get awarded each year simply because nobody applied for them! These scholarships and grants are given by corporations who take it as a tax write-off, and if the scholarship does not get awarded, then they do not get the tax write-off. The best thing you can do to manage the costs of college is to apply for as many scholarships as you can find, and then do some more!

Jon is a computer engineer who maintains a variety of web sites based on his knowledge and experience. You can find out more about College Scholarships and College Grants at his web site at Finding College Scholarships.