Four years to prepare for paying for college

[sweetpea8319]

I can tell you that if your student is eligible for scholarships, no matter what they are, have him/her put in the time to do them, because the rewards are great! A lot of the applications ask about a unique experience that has helped your student grow, and their response to this is often key. When I was a senior in HS, I studied for the first semester in Honduras, central america, and when I came home, I spent the month of January (before I had to go back to classes for 2nd semester) finding and applying for scholarships. I must have applied for at least 20 scholarships, and received at least 12, plus more since then during my college years. Because of my scholarship work, I ended up actually going to a private 4-yr university, travelling twice during this time on scholarship money, being able to purchase a car for transportation, and also received money back from excess scholarship.

Some you might look into with your child that are big ones are:
Ford Family Foundation (Oregon only)
Junior Achievement

It definitely helps to be a minority, and if you are needing financial help, that is also a benefit, because there are many scholarships designed for these specific groups.

I also did have a couple part-time jobs during high school and college, and scholarships and schools look at work experiences as much as other things, so this is a big key thing for your children to become involved, work, volunteer, etc. Help them now by building their resumes!

[mercygate]

Originally Posted by sweetpea8319

I can tell you that if your student is eligible for scholarships, no matter what they are, have him/her put in the time to do them, because the rewards are great! A lot of the applications ask about a unique experience that has helped your student grow, and their response to this is often key. When I was a senior in HS, I studied for the first semester in Honduras, central america, and when I came home, I spent the month of January (before I had to go back to classes for 2nd semester) finding and applying for scholarships. I must have applied for at least 20 scholarships, and received at least 12, plus more since then during my college years. Because of my scholarship work, I ended up actually going to a private 4-yr university, travelling twice during this time on scholarship money, being able to purchase a car for transportation, and also received money back from excess scholarship.

Some you might look into with your child that are big ones are:
Ford Family Foundation (Oregon only)
Junior Achievement

It definitely helps to be a minority, and if you are needing financial help, that is also a benefit, because there are many scholarships designed for these specific groups.

I also did have a couple part-time jobs during high school and college, and scholarships and schools look at work experiences as much as other things, so this is a big key thing for your children to become involved, work, volunteer, etc. Help them now by building their resumes!

When my husband (a communit college professor) had a student whose financial package for a big name school didn't meet his needs, the two of them scoured the universe and made some 75 applications for peanut-sized scholarships from specialty groups (the kid was a Polish immigrant). The boy was awarded some 15 scholarships in varying amounts that added up to around $7,000 a year!

[THutch04]

DEFINITELY look into scholarships and taking AP classes.

I came from a high school with NO AP classes, so I had to start completely from scratch, which meant graduating in four years, thousands of dollars in private loans because government and university financial aid was never enough to cover the full cost, which when your parents don't wish to co-sign for them generally results in a 10 percent interest rate. Certainly going to a community college and then transferring to a public school would have been cheaper.

I wouldn't recommend working for a few years in between high school and college. My experience is that if kids do that they get used to the paycheck coming in and they find that they don't want to give it up.

[Seatuck]

Originally Posted by rpp

Yes, okay. I am sorry, I should not have suggested it.

But I did do this for my son. On the other hand, I have a fairly high income.

We did it also as part of our plan. It's working out nicely.

[Seatuck]

Forgive my ignorance but do all homeschoolers take SAT's and SAT2's to get into college? I know some who did.I know some colleges who require them whether home schooled or not. Check into that. When you sign up for those you start getting emails about colleges and scholarships from CollegeBoard. Just create a new free email account to have those go to which you and your child can check. It makes it easier to manage. You will get a lot of junk emails . We call ours "our kids first name + college@ yahoo.com for example. (you can use googlemail or whatever service you want) We have the passwords and check these with our kids.

You can also sign up for www.fastweb.com have those emails sent to the "janescollege" email .
Check out the various guides in the Kiplingers , Princeton Review type( there are other names I just can't think of them right now) line of books. You should be able to get them out from the Library. Ask the librarian for How to Pay for College references.There should also be books of scholarships. Online searching for scholarships works also. We found one that way.

Both College Board and FastWeb will have your student fill out a profile with their interests and preferences for college. This will trigger certain mailings to your email account.

Pay attention to the newspapers, your bank , source of employment which offer scholarships. We have the Lotto scholarship in NY for instance which one of my son's won. It was based on recommendations , gpa and community service. Service oriented community groups offer scholarships.

So you can see, verifiable community service can be important.

Keep in mind your student may need letters of recommendations for scholarships. Decide who in your life would be a good person to ask this of. Could be family friends, employers of the student, leaders of community groups. Have your child volunteer at a political campaign if he is interested . That might generate a letter of recommendation.

Your high school may allow you to visit with the guidance counselors there to see what is available in what is typically the junior year. I know parents who have done that.


If you know the course of study that your student is interested you can search for a scholarship that way online. There is usually a time factor. We searched online and found an award from a major 4 year institute that had to be filled out in the junior year and verified for students who were sucessful in science and math.We found it in the nick of time just weeks away from the deadline. Took a little work to get it applied for from our sons school. But he got it . 15K scholarship that we accidentally found. Not sure what they would do with a homeschooler without the typical test scores. Can't hurt to ask.

Preparing for college really needs to start as soon as a child is born for those who are reading and have small children or have yet to have children. We raised our kids to know that part of our family plan for their further education was that they needed to do well to get scholarships.It seemed to work for us. Two were in the top 10% of their classes.( Public School)

If you have small children check out such programs as Upromise.

[mmyers]

Originally Posted by rpp

If you own your home, consider making extra principal payments. This both helps pay the mortgage off early (saving interest) and more quickly increases the equity in your home.

Later, you may be in a position to get a equity line of credit to help out with some of the college-related expenses.

I went the route of paying for my son's culinary arts degree, a 2 year program. However, he has fallen in love with accounting of all things. (If you knew him, you would never guess that he is really an inner .)

So after he is finished with school here next month, he is moving back to St. Louis where his mother lives and will go for a degree in accounting. I am extremely pleased at this turn of events, but am now completely tapped out. His mother will help pay but he will have to get some kind of financial aid.

DO NOT put your home at risk in anyway for the payment of college. School loans are as cheap as morgage rates and you don't have to risk your house. My parents helped me where they could, but I had to take out some loans...ultimately they still own thier home and my payments are completely manageable.

Note to the above writer:
When your son finishes his CPA, ask him if he thinks this is a good move.