FINANCIAL AIDE
When searching for financial aide, be VERY careful about giving anyone you correct email address or name. If a site asks for money to provide a service, remember, you're looking for money not looking for a place to spend money. If you insist on paying someone, feel free to give it to me.
NEVER GIVE YOU SOCIAL SECURITY NUMBER ONLINE!!! NEVER! NEVER! NEVER!
Last year alone, more than 5 billion dollars was stolen from students and their parents searching for scholarship money.
When searching for scholarships and grants, pay close attention to the url (web address). .com is generally a "for profit" site; .gov is a government site; .org is generally a "non profit" site; .net is similar to .com; .edu is an educational site. If you concentrate on .org, .gov and .edu, eliminating .com, you will be more likely to find authentic sites.
How to Find Out About Grants for Your College Education
Following are some suggestions, resources and/or guidelines. While some of the dates may seem off, check to see if the organization is still offering the scholarship.
1. Ask the admissions folks. It's in their best interests to help students get admitted - that's how they earn their money. Ask especially about the Pell Grant and the Supplemental Educational Opportunity Grant (SEOG). Ask also about work-study programs and loans. Ask about special programs sponsored in the state and within the college itself.
2. Ask your high school guidance counselor.
3. Call the Federal Student Aid Information Center at 800-433-3243 and ask for assistance. Ask especially for the Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA). Access the form and information on-line at FAFSA.ed.gov. Information on Federal Pell Grants, Subsidized Stafford Loans, PLUS Loans, Federal Supplemental Education Opportunity Grants (SEOG), Federal Work Study programs, and Federal Perkins Loans is available for a phone call or on the Web site.
4. Ask local organizations like civic groups, churches, and business associations. Also, there may be a local foundation that offers scholarships. Go to your local public library and ask the reference librarian for the Foundation Center Directories. Look for a foundation in your city or one in your state that funds scholarships in your city area. Search the Foundation Center Web Site at fdncenter.org
5. Ask the company you or your parents work for - many offer scholarships for employee's children.
6. On America On-Line, use your GO TO menu, drag down to KEYWORD, and enter Grants. You will be taken to AOL's Financial Aide area.
7. Be sure you market your special skills and talents to the appropriate departments in the college you want to attend. Talk to the appropriate persons about helping you get assistance.
8. You can pay tuition in installments through some specialized companies. One is Academic Management Services of Swansea, MA. You spread out the payments over six to 12 months. You write a check to the company and they deal with the college.
9. Check with a local tax specialist to be sure you are deducting all you can regarding your education expenses.
10. There is a Web site newly initiated by the U.S. Department of Education to help young people, ages 10-14, learn about what it takes to get into college, including information about preparation and programs to help them pay for college. The site is ed.gov/thinkcollege/early.
11. US News Online American's Best Colleges ranks more than 1,400 schools and provides a scholarship search engine. usnews.com/usnews/edu/home.htm
12. CollegeQuest was developed by Peterson's college guide. The site allows students to store results of their college searches in personal online accounts. There is an extensive database of 3,500 colleges. Useful scholarship data is included. collegequest.com
13. Collegenet has college and scholarchip database from ACT, the testing service. There are online applications for 180 colleges. collegenet.com
14. The Princeton Review has articles from college guides and electronic applications for 650 colleges. review.com
15. Kaplan is a database of more than 1,000 schools with links to college Web pages. kaplan.com
16. College Board Online features a large database of more than 3,000 colleges including a financial-aid calculator and online essay evaluation. collegeboard.org
17. Peterson's Guide features a variety of tips, hints and sources for financial aide information. Go to the Web site at petersons.com.
18. For quick school profiles, these sites might be helpful - collegeview.com, campustours.com, and collegexpress.com.
19. Web site, FinAid.org, is a page that provides free access to scholarship databases.
20. College Parents of America provides information on nationwide programs at collegeparents.org or you can call 888-256-4627.
21. Teach for America program has a Web site at teachforamerica.org. Here's an overview of the program. Each year, about 3,000 individuals of all academic majors compete to become part of Teach For America. Through an intensive admissions process, Teach For America selects 500 new corps members who demonstrate leadership potential and the ability to excel as teachers in under-resourced public schools. The 500 new corps members come together during the summer for a five-week national training institute in which they gain experience teaching while receiving guidance from veteran teachers. Upon completing the institute, corps members travel to one of 13 sites where school districts hire them as regular beginning teachers. Local Teach For America offices help orient corps members to their new communities and coordinate a support network that encourages corps members to share best practices and to help each other in ensuring students excel. Beyond their two-year commitment, corps members remain connected through an alumni association. Many alumni remain in teaching, others leave the classroom but remain in the field of education, and still others take a unique perspective into fields such as law, medicine, public policy, and business. Since 1989, Teach For America has inspired over 20,000 individuals to apply and has placed almost 5,000 of them in teaching positions in 13 geographic areas.
22. ACT, Inc. offers information and resources on getting ready for college. For information, contact Susan Owen, ACT, Inc., PO Box 168, Iowa City, IA 52243, call 319-337-1156, fax 319-337-1014, email webmaster@act.org or visit act.org/path/parent/
23. eStudent Loan is TOTALLY FREE service for loans which is similar to the scholarship search service FastWeb provides is located at estudentloan.com. The main tool, the LoanFinder, sorts through a database of lenders and finds the best fitting Private/Alternative loans or federally guaranteed Stafford and Parent (PLUS) loans, with a minimum of effort on the user's part.
24. College Opportunities On-Line (COOL) offers information on more than 9,000 colleges, universities, and career schools. It boasts data and details not found on commercial sites. http://www.nces.ed.gov/ipeds/cool
25. Project EASI (Easy Access for Students and Institutions) was about changing the way we do business in the world of student financial aid. Their objectives included providing a single point of contact by which students and institutions can carry out necessary tasks associated with postsecondary education, while streamlining processes and reducing complexity, redundancy, and cost. http://easi.ed.gov
26. Travel Grants Available for Women through the National Science Foundation and the Association for Women in Mathematics, The objective of the NSF-AWM Travel Grants program is to enable women mathematicians to attend research conferences in their field, thereby providing a valuable opportunity to advance their research activities and their visibility in the research community. Travel Grant Selection Committee, Association for Women in Mathematics, 4114 Computer & Space Sciences Building, University of Maryland, College Park, Maryland 20742-2461, 301-405-7892, awm@math.umd.edu , http://www.awm-math.org/travelgrants.html
27. A resource provided by the American Education Guidance Center is Get Recruited at http://www.get-recruited.com/
28. Nonprofit Sector Research Fund Offers William Randolph Hearst Endowed Scholarship for Minority Students
The Nonprofit Sector Research Fund, a grantmaking program of the Aspen Institute, offers the William Randolph Hearst Endowed Scholarship in conjunction with a summer internship program open to members of minority groups based on need and academic excellence. Both graduate and undergraduate students are eligible for the award.
Contact:, David Williams, Senior Program Coordinator, Nonprofit Sector Research Fund, The Aspen Institute, One Dupont Circle, NW, Suite 700, Washington, DC 20036, Tel: (202) 736-5838, Fax: (202) 293-0525, Email: david.williams@aspeninstitute.org , RFP Link: http://www.nonprofitresearch.org/newsletter1530/newsletter_show.htm?doc_id=16318
29. Avenues Unlimited - a scholarship program for individuals with disabilities to train them in skills needed to compete effectively for jobs. Avenues Unlimited is a private, nonprofit organization. For information, write Fritz Rumpel at Frumpel@avenuesunlimited.org or call 301-585-2608 or fax 301-585-2935. The Web site is http://www.avenuesunlimited.org.
30. Hispanic Scholarship Fund Invites Applications for College Scholarships, http://www.hsf.net/scholarship/CollegeRetention.html
31. Contact local universities and trade schools - here are two good data bases. http://www.utexas.edu/world/univ and http://www.overview.com/colleges.
32. Distance learning certificate information. http://www.detc.org.
33. College Scholarships for Cancer Survivors Offered by American Cancer Society, Great Lakes Division Deadline: April 16, 2002 The American Cancer Society Foundation, Great Lakes Division http://www.gl.cancer.org/ ), is offering college scholarships of $1,000 for the fall 20002 school year to young cancer survivors in Indiana and Michigan to help them achieve their goals of higher education. See the organization's Web site or contact its offices to obtain an application form. Contact: American Cancer Society, Great Lakes Division, 1755 Abbey Road, East Lansing, MI 48823, Tel: (800) 723-0360