How To Almost Guarantee You Can Get A College Scholarship

You are probably already aware of the very high costs of sending your son or daughter to college, whether you have been researching it in preparation for them going, or whether you already have a child in college. And it is probably no news to you that despite your extensive and detailed planning and budgeting, your best guess is likely going to fall far short of the real costs.

It is almost guaranteed that the number you arrive at for budgeting purposes is going to be low by about 25-30%. One of the problems that this fosters is that you may have decided to send your son or daughter to a local two year college in order to keep the overall costs down. If your thought process in this decision was financially related, you may wish to revisit that decision. In the real world today, the environment is very tough and competitive, and you of course want to provide your son or daughter with every possible advantage they can take, including the best college education possible, where a two year college may not provide as good an education or degree.

But even more importantly, the total costs of sending your son or daughter to college does not need to be as astronomically high as the figures would indicate. This is because there are literally tons of scholarships available that your son or daughter CAN qualify for. While some scholarships only provide a few hundred dollars, other scholarships and grants can provide a full ride, including tuition, books, and housing. And there is no limit, legal or otherwise, on the number of scholarships or grants that your son or daughter can apply for AND be awarded. Note that while a student loan needs to be repaid after graduation, grants and scholarships do NOT need to be repaid, and that is a huge difference.

Like anything else, you need to be fully aware of where you are researching college scholarships, especially online. Do not pay any money to see if you qualify while a few of these types of sites can be legitimate, the vast majority of legitimate sites do not require any kind of pre-payment to see if you have qualified for a college scholarship. Contrary to what has become popular belief over the years, scholarships are not only awarded to the football superstars or musical geniuses, nor are they awarded based solely on financial need. Yes, financial need still plays a part in the overall scope of things, but it is not nearly the sole determining factor that it was years ago.

The truth is that there are millions of dollars worth of scholarships that are not awarded each year simply because nobody applied for them! No, you do not need to be the top football jock or the outstanding musician of the year in order to get a scholarship. In the majority of cases, you simply need to apply. Remember, these scholarships are tax deductions for corporations, and if the scholarship is not awarded, then the corporation does not get to take that tax deduction. Therefore, the requirements for being eligible for that scholarship are less and less, including a financial need basis, but the single requirement that exists for all of them is that you need to fill out the application!

By: Jon Arnold
Credit:www.superfeature.com