You have read the brochures, you have made your college choice, now comes the tough part of determining how you are going to pay for your college education. If you are like most students, you are not independently wealthy and so you start looking at student loan applications. This is the way that the vast majority of college students fund their college education. But there are multiple things to consider in this scenario which indicate that although this may be the easiest way to finance it, it may not be the best way, and you will not know that unless you have investigated the options.

A recent news article stated that most college financial aid offices maintain a list of preferred lenders. These are lenders who have worked out something with the college to make the loan application process and loan approval process as easy as possible, both for the student as well as the college accounting office. But this article encourages students to look beyond the list of preferred lenders that the college provides, since from a total and overall financial aspect, this may not be your best option.

One of the things stated in this article is that some of these lenders are so desperate to get on this preferred list that they add certain “sweeteners” to the college administrators in return for being put on this list. These sweeteners include things like stock options and all expense paid vacations to exotic destinations. While that is certainly not the norm, there is no way for you to determine which ones may have done this simply by looking at the list of potential lenders on the collegeâ??s preferred list. The sad thing is that although these companies are on the preferred list via these tactics, that fact means nothing in terms of the value or expense of the loan they are providing.

Some of these lenders also offer incentives to choose them. For example, some offer a 1% reduction in the interest rate after 48 on-time payments, and others offer a 1% reduction in principal after 48 on-time payments. While that may sound good on the surface, you need to look at what this really means. In the first case, it is the same as lowering your interest rate by 0.33%, and in the second case, it is like lowering your overall interest rate by 0.12%. In other words, if you donâ??t do the math, you will not realize that what they are offering is basically nothing.

Correct me if I am wrong, but wouldnâ??t the ideal way to finance your college education be a way where you got funding to pay for part of all of your tuition and/or books and/or housing expenses, and not have to pay it back, ever? That can be done, yet few students are aware of it or take advantage of it.

The method I am referring to is college scholarships. There are a truckload of college scholarships available for virtually any student. The student does not need to be an athletic superstar or musical protoge or have a squeaky clean GPA. In fact, many of these scholarships do not even require the student to have a financial need in order to qualify for it.

Even stranger is the fact that out of all the college scholarships available, a good number of them go unawarded each year simply because nobody applied for them! If the Tiddly Winks Foundation is willing to give you money for college, do you really care what the source of this funding is?

Investigate the avenue of college scholarships. The only thing it will cost you is the stamp and the time to fill out the application, which is time well invested.

Jon Arnold
http://www.articlesbase.com/education-articles/how-to-fund-your-college-education-expenses-133493.html

You have heard the expression many times before â?? if you think college is expensive, you ought to see how expensive ignorance is. While there might be some wry humor in that expression, there should be no excuse for someone not going to college these days. There may be very valid reasons for not going to college, but a lack of financial funding should clearly not be one of those reasons.

College grants and college scholarships are abounding today, and in fact, many of the available grants and scholarships actually are not awarded every year, for the simple reason that nobody applied for them! As crazy as that sounds, it is true. Businesses and corporations use the college grant and college scholarships they offer as a tax writeoff, and if it is not awarded, then they lose out on that writeoff, so they are more anxious than ever to award these college grants and college scholarships.

One common myth which is held by many people is that you need to show a financial need before you will be awarded a college grant or college scholarship, or that you need to excel in a particular area, like the star quarterback in football, the ace basketball player who can shoot three-pointers all day long, the violin player or the piano player where it appears that Carnegie Hall is clearly in their very talented musical future, etc. But note that I said these are â??mythsâ?. In other words, these perceptions are incorrect.

Today, a college grant or college scholarship is available to virtually any student who has the motivation and the incentive to fill out the application forms. In fact, many students get multiple scholarships and grants, simply because they sat down and took the time to fill out the applications. These are students who do not excel in sports, in music, in drama, or any other area â?? they simply want to go to college, they understand the importance of having a college education in todayâ??s very competitive real world, and they made the time to go through the steps required.

While there are both grants and scholarships available, grants are more likely to be awarded based on financial need, whereas scholarships are not nearly as closely tied to whether or not there is a financial need. But then again, when you look at the cost of a college education these days, after considering living expenses in a dorm or a campus apartment, meals, books and other very basic necessities, the cost of that college education is going to run well into five figures, perhaps even six figures, so a financial need is not going to be hard to justify for virtually anyone.

College grants and college scholarships differ greatly from the usual student loans like the FAFSA loan that is available through almost any collegeâ??s financial aid or admissions office. A student loan needs to be paid back. Although payments usually do not start until after the student has graduated and the interest rate is quite low, the fact that it needs to be paid back makes grants and scholarships a much more attractive option to pursue, since neither grants nor scholarships need to be paid back.

Take the time to search out the many resources available for a college grant or college scholarship. After graduation, it is much better for you if you start out by not being in a huge pile of debt, but can start clean with your new degree.

Jon Arnold
http://www.articlesbase.com/education-articles/how-to-find-free-college-grant-money-115613.html

Towards the end of every school year, most non-profit organizations hold their Awards Banquets where worthy students are honored with various scholarships. Often, the names of recipients appear in the newspapers as an acknowledgment of all their hard work and dedication. Since the awarding organization is primarily giving the money to be used for the studentâ??s education, they simply ask the family where the student will be attending, and parents, unaware of the pitfall, tell them. Virtually all such organizations are responsible for the fatal error of making the check payable to the student AND the college. So sets the stage for the billion dollar scholarship rip-off.

No, congratulations are not in order. In fact, pity the poor student who dedicated several years of blood, sweat and tears to the Red Cross, YMCA, Kiwanis, Rotary, or other such non-profit organization, only to see all of their well deserved scholarship money evaporate into thin air and wind up in the â??scholarship fundâ? of their college of choice instead of their own financial aid packages.

Most schools send out their financial aid offers between January and April, with a May 1st decision date. As most colleges consider private scholarship awards a resource to help pay for a studentâ??s education, they reduce their share of the studentâ??s financial aid package dollar for dollar, and this is where the problem lies.

What a kick in the teeth it is for a family to read a revised award letter showing that the schoolâ??s portion of the financial aid was reduced by the amount of the private scholarship the student earned! The bad news is usually listed on the award letter as private scholarship, outside aid, or very often as other. Hereâ??s a typical before and after scenario:

Before Receiving a Private Scholarship

$45,000 – Cost of Attendance (COA = tuition, fees, room & board, books, etc.)

$10,000 – Expected Family Contribution (EFC)*

$35,000 – Financial Need (FN = the maximum amount of aid a family will qualify for)

* EFC = the minimum the federal govâ??t determines a family will pay at any college

Weâ??ll assume the student qualifies for the following aid:

$ 3,500 – Stafford Loan

$ 4,000 – Perkins Loan

$ 2,500 – Federal work-study award

$ 3,000 – State grant

$22,000 – college scholarships, grants, tuition waivers, etc.

$35,000 – Total

The student will qualify for a maximum of $22,000/yr in financial aid from the college.

After Receiving a Private Scholarship:

$45,000 – Cost of Attendance (COA)

$10,000 – Expected Family Contribution (EFC)

$35,000 – Financial Need

The student qualifies for the following aid:

$ 3,500 – Stafford Loan

$ 4,000 – Perkins Loan

$ 2,500 – Federal work-study award

$ 3,000 – State grants, etc.

$10,000 – Private Scholarship

$12,000 – College scholarships, grants, tuition waivers, etc.

$35,000 – Total

While the student still qualifies for a maximum of $22,000/yr in financial aid from the college, the private scholarship has now become a bonus for the school, not the student. All of the studentâ??s hard work actually saves the college money, and the benefit to the student is reduced to nothing!

It should be no great surprise to anyone that our greedy institutions of higher learning laid the groundwork for this clever thievery months in advance. Students who apply to any of the 225 elite private and state colleges that require the CSS Financial Aid Profile (FAP) are asked to indicate whether they expect to be scholarship recipients. Section SR, Question SR-150 asks for the dollar amount anticipated from student resources for school year 2007-2008, such as â??grants, scholarships and fellowships,â? and they must be listed individually in Section ES.

The majority of schools that only require the FAFSA (Free Application for Federal Student Aid), simply send out a questionnaire asking about private scholarships. They are less devious, but just as deft.

Who could imagine in their wildest dreams that colleges would stoop so low and play so dirty? Truth be told â?? and have no doubt about it – itâ??s all about the money. Every year there are billions of dollars awarded in private scholarships, and the beneficiaries of all the hard work that earned them is none other than our poor, starving institutions of higher learning, enriching their billion dollar endowment funds at the expense of their hard working, deserving students.

The best way for a family to avoid the injustice is to personally discuss this sordid state of affairs with the scholarship committee either at the time of application or well in advance of their award announcements. In that way, the check can be made payable to the parents instead of the student! If that fails, parents should ask them to postpone sending the check until after the student has enrolled.

As a last resort, have the parents call the college financial aid administrator, explain the situation, and kindly ask (grovel if you must), that because of all their hard work, the student is really entitled to the money and the college should not penalize them by reducing their aid by the amount of the scholarship. If they take a hard line, try to negotiate some of the money back into the studentâ??s pocket, because half a loaf is better than none. Never lose sight of the fact that financial aid is a commodity, and like all commodities, it is negotiable!

Reecy Aresty
http://www.articlesbase.com/college-and-university-articles/private-scholarships-the-billion-dollar-ripoff-127241.html