If you have not discovered it yet, you will soon discover that the costs
of sending your son or daughter to college have skyrocketed in recent
years. The charges being assessed for housing would lead you to believe
that the dorm includes servants and room service, and the cost of
textbooks would make you think that they are getting original autographed
copies. Yes, the cost of college is probably greater than the gross
national product of some third world countries, and no matter how
carefully you analyze the costs so that you can budget for it, it is
virtually guaranteed that your estimates are going to fall far short.
Hopefully you have not encouraged your son or daughter to not consider
college. A college education is a necessity in today’s cruel hard world,
and not having a college education almost guarantees a struggle through
life. Life is hard enough as it is, why complicate matters? For economic
reasons, you may have encouraged your son or daughter to seriously
consider a local community college instead of the brand-name state
university. But I would urge you to reconsider that suggestion, since you
of course want to be able to give your son or daughter every possible
advantage that they could have, and the education that they get at the
four-year state university or brand name college is almost certainly going
to better than the local community college. You are saying fine, but how
can I afford it?
The overall total cost of sending your son or daughter to the college
that provides the BEST education for them should not be the deciding
factor. The reason I say this is because there is a truckload of college
scholarships and grants available that your son or daughter CAN qualify
for. Maybe some of these are only a couple hundred bucks where others will
cover the costs of the whole enchilada. There is not any kind of quota or
limit on the number of scholarships that your son or daughter can apply
for and be awarded. It is important to note that while you can almost
certainly qualify for a student loan for your child, a student loan needs
to be paid back after graduation, whereas a college scholarship or college
grant does NOT need to be paid back. This is a tremendous difference.
As you research the availability of college scholarships and college
grants, be fully aware that like most things, there are scams out there.
You should never be required to pay a fee simply to find out if you
qualify for a particular scholarship. While it happens, this requirement
is rare and should be avoided, or at least looked at very carefully. And
despite popular beliefs and myths, college scholarships and college grants
are not only awarded to the top football player, the star soccer player,
the musical genius, etc. Nor is award determination based solely on
financial need as it was in years past. A majority of scholarships simply
require the student to apply for them!
There are tons of college scholarships and college grants available,
all of them totaling well into the hundreds of thousands of dollars. One
of the almost ludicrous facts about this is that a large number of these
scholarships and grants do not get awarded each year simply because nobody
applied for them! These scholarships and grants are given by corporations
who take it as a tax write-off, and if the scholarship does not get
awarded, then they do not get the tax write-off. The best thing you can do
to manage the costs of college is to apply for as many scholarships as you
can find, and then do some more!
