Archive for the ‘Scholarships’ Category
February 23, 2011
Financial-aid and scholarship searches can be hard enough, but when scammers enter the picture, it’s a whole new ballgame. As recently noted in The Washington Post’s “Answer Sheet” blog, certain individuals can be deceptive when offering scholarships, though it is legal for for-profit companies to charge for scholarship information. What for-profit companies cannot do, via Valerie Strauss’ blog post:
- “collect fees but never provide the information”
- “misrepresent themselves as a government official”
- “guarantee they’ll get the student full funding for college”
For additional guidance, see the section of the Federal Trade Commission’s website devoted to scholarship scams, which includes a list of actual companies that have faced legal action. (Look past the frequent use of juvenile $ signs in place of the letter s; this site really does have some authoritative information).
Making money on FAFSA
Beyond scholarships, a whole cottage industry exists to fraudulently (or otherwise unscrupulously) charge for filing the free FAFSA federal financial aid application or push fake scholarships. One case in point: misspelled online searches.
As Strauss points out, if you misspell “FAFSA” as “fasfa” or “fasa” (pretty easy to do), you may find various websites that will take your money for filing the form or even file the wrong form. For clarification, the URL for the real FAFSA is: http://www.fafsa.ed.gov.
Conducting some experiments, I noticed that Google can be helpful, too, usually redirecting various versions of the misspelled “fasfa” with the real FAFSA (though the paid ad for “fasfa.com” still shows up):
These financial aid scams are similar to the free credit report ones, where you need to go to annualcreditreport.com for the actual free reports, not freecreditreport.com or the other similarly named sites that charge you for the same service.
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January 24, 2011
We don’t usually target the 18-and-under crowd on this blog, but consider this post our gift to the youth of America in advance of a State of the Union address where President Obama is expected to talk about education’s central role in the country’s future.
Wants to give you $3000 to go to school.
This week’s scholarship at the student-aid clearinghouse that is Scholarships.com comes from the late Sam Walton. Worth $3,000, the Sam Walton Community Scholarship is available to high-school/home-school seniors who are U.S. citizens or permanent residents who:
- have demonstrable financial need
- have a cumulative GPA of ≥2.5
- have taken the ACT or SAT
- plan to enroll for fall 2011 at a two- or four-year U.S. college/university
- are not employed by WalMart or have parents/legal guardians employed by WalMart
Altogether, more than 2,600 of these nonrenewable scholarships will be awarded nationally at the beginning of the 2011-2012 academic year.
Best of all, this one’s easy. There are no essay requirements, recommendation letters, or even high GPAs needed (2.5 cumulative minimum for high school … seriously). Even an academic slacker can qualify for this scholarship, and there’s 2,600 of them out there, so take your chances. I might not work for Charles Schwab, but I can tell you that this investment is worth your time.
But don’t delay, all you procrastinators! The online application is due next Monday, January 31. You can see the official application instructions, FAQs, and even an eligibility quiz at the Sam Walton Community Scholarship web page. Good luck!
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Photo courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.
December 16, 2010
We were there in November, when KFC announced a $20,000 scholarship contest. High-school seniors were asked to tweet why they deserved the $20k, and tweet they did. This was one of my favorites:
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November 23, 2010
KFC, fried chicken titan and member of the culinary avant-garde, made a significant announcement last Tuesday.
From Yahoo! News: The company will be offering a $20,000 scholarship to the high school senior who concocts the best reason for why they deserve it — on Twitter, in 140 characters or fewer.
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September 2, 2010
If you’re like most people, the topic of financial aid makes you want to take a baseball bat to your head. Also, if you’re like most people, you can’t avoid these two stomach-turning words if you’ve been to college or want to go back after some time in the workforce. It’s okay. I feel the same way, and even think tanks that have studied it agree:
“the primary difficulty with current federal financial aid policy is that it is poorly understood by nearly all of its constituents”
–Center for American Progress
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May 25, 2010
A great post from Student Loan Blog came out last week on how to mess up a scholarship application. The piece, titled “Get Your Scholarship Application Rejected in 5 Simple Steps!”, is a nice read for anybody in the hunt for scholarships. I’d summarize it like this: Don’t be late. Write well. Get good grades. Be truthful. To these I would add:
Don’t make a mistake.
Many organizations that administer scholarships are part of government bureaucracies that will reject applications that are missing a letter in a box or have a blank information field. It would behoove the serious scholarship applicant to not only avoid discrepancies in facts but also to triple-check the form for errors or problematic blank spaces. Don’t let 10 minutes of proofreading prevent you from $25,000 and a chance to pursue your dreams.
Want to learn more about scholarships? Check back soon to YouShouldGoToSchool.com for an upcoming expansion to our financial aid section. We’ll simplify financial aid options, breaking down FAFSA, pointing you to scholarships, and dispelling myths about the affordability of higher education.
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Photo courtesy of b r e n t via Flickr.
Get your Scholarship Application rejected in 5 simple steps!
March 22, 2010
The Saga Continues. . .
Sunday night, the House of Representatives voted on and passed a version of legislation set to overhaul the current student lending system, according to an article in the Washingtion Post. Under the new system, students would borrow directly from the Department of Education, rather than from federally subsidized student loan companies, a move projected to positively impact the federal budget. This is the latest development in the ongoing debate over what form the overhaul will take, how it will be incorporated into the healthcare bill and how the potential savings will be allocated.
Earlier estimates projected the savings to be $87 billion over the course of 10 years, but more recent estimates, which take into account Pell Grant funding issues, say it’s much less. Accoring to EduWeek.org:
“in part because of the expanded need for Pell Grants and in part because more schools joined the Direct Loan program over the past year, the CBO’s savings estimate is now much lower; one recent estimate was about $67 billion.”
The Pell Grant system, a federally funded effort to provide financial assistance to lower-income college students, has seen a spike in applicants since national interest has turned to higher education as a way to secure an edge in the lean job market. The student-loan legislation would provide additional funding to the Pell Grant system, enabling an increase in the maximum value of the Pell Grant (scheduled to reach $5,550 next year) while adjusting it annually according to inflation.
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See our earlier post for more information and links to other insightful articles about student-loan reform. We’ll continue to follow the progression of the financial aid bill, and keep you up-to-date on this blog. Or get a comprehensive look at financial aid for college.
March 16, 2010
As if there wasn’t enough already riding on the healthcare debate taking place in Washington, the folks at edweek.org recently posted this blog.
There is currently a discussion in Congress over whether to include legislation in the healthcare bill that would modify the way students borrow money for college. According to their report, the Congressional Budget Office has estimated $87 billion in savings over ten years from a change in the student lending system. Under the new system, students would borrow directly from the U.S. Treasury, rather than from third-party institutions, whose loans are subsidized by the federal government.
The benefit of combining healthcare and student lending into one bill would be to compensate for the projected high cost of healthcare reform with the anticipated savings of student loan reform.
Also included in the bill are measures to reform the Pell grant system:
“If the student loan change isn’t passed, there will be a major shortfall in the Pell Grant program, a senior administration official told me. In fact, the maximum grant would go to $2,150 from $5,300.”
Although there is potential for many students to benefit from the incorporation of student loan legislation into the healthcare bill, push-back against healthcare reform could jeopardize the chance for that potential to be realized.
Photo courtesy of Warren H via Flickr
