Plan Ahead For College Scholarships

If your child wants to attend college after graduating from homeschool high school, money is probably one of the chief things on your mind. How do people pay for college?!  It’s not unusual for a private school to cost $40,000 a year or more, and public universities aren’t a lot cheaper because, unlike private schools, they don’t typically award as much scholarship money, so the final costs can be comparable. The best way to get college money is to plan ahead, and use a variety of different methods to meet your needs.

       

In addition to scholarships that individual universities award, there are private scholarships that you can apply for. These scholarships are often available all the way through the summer, so if you have a senior, they can still look for private scholarship money during the summer before they go off to college. Not all private scholarships are merit-based; some are awarded based on personal attributes.  For instance, our son won a scholarship for Italian Americans, just by being part Italian American!  There are scholarships specifically for girls, scholarships for students who are into the arts, and scholarships for students who want to travel overseas. If you look hard enough, you’ll probably find a scholarship for just about anything!

How do you find these scholarships?  The best way to search is to use college scholarship search engines.  Fastweb.com is one of the largest, and both of my sons found some excellent scholarships on this site.  Other sites you can try include Scholarships.com, finaid.com, and fastaid.com. 

In addition to searching for private scholarships, you can also ask a college for more money.  Sometimes they will give you information about other scholarships you can apply for, and sometimes they will have undesignated funds available for students who ask.  Most schools require incoming students to declare their intentions to attend by May 1^st, so if you contact the financial aid office after this date, they might have financial aid funds that are available because someone else turned that school down and didn’t accept the scholarships aid.  Another good time to ask for more financial aid is in August or September, when some students drop out of school at the last minute. That might free up more financial aid, and asking at this time of year might result in more aid for your child. Of course, a school won’t just give you more money because you ask them. You might have to demonstrate your need, and even then they may not have any more funds left, but it is worth asking. As with so many other things in life, if you don’t ask, you won’t know!

Planning ahead, especially during your child’s junior year of high school, is the best way to maximize your financial aid. Sometimes consulting your financial planner is worthwhile too, just to make sure you are not doing anything financially that will jeopardize your federal financial aid chances. Whatever you do, don’t wait until your child’s senior year to start thinking about paying for college! Plan ahead for success.