Financial Aid: Three Tips to Move Foward in the Process

With college tuition increasing these days, prospective and current students should consider financial aid.  The following post has three tips to help them proceed in getting some assistance.

For two million-plus college applicants and millions of current college students, how to afford tuition is always top-of-mind, particularly in an economy where many household incomes have remained stagnant.  Competition for much-coveted financial aid remains as fierce as the admissions process itself. Below are three key tips in the race for money – which unofficially kicked off January 1 with the opening of FAFSA (Free Application for Federal Student Aid) – with advice on how to successfully navigate the financial aid frenzy: Continue Reading

Make College More Affordable with these Five Great Tips

Piggy bank for college fund. Photo courtesy of Shutterstock.

When you begin researching colleges and degree programs, it’s easy to get caught up with the cost – specifically the cost per credit hour. But before choosing a college, it’s also important to look inside the cost of tuition because it often includes a number of hidden fees – everything from books to parking and living expenses. No one wants to pay for things they don’t need, but students often do without even realizing it. Continue Reading

$6 Million in New Scholarships to Assist Nontraditional Students

Certain college students could benefit from new scholarships designed to ease the financial burden of furthering their educations.

Stevens-Henager College, a leading provider of on-campus and online higher education, in May announced in 14 new scholarship programs worth $6 million annually. All of the new scholarship programs may be awarded on a quarterly basis to recipient students at each Stevens-Henager campus and the campuses of its sister schools, CollegeAmerica and California College San Diego.  The number of scholarships that each campus may award per quarter will be based upon the campuses enrollment size. Continue Reading

College Scholarships Students May Not Know About

Need some extra scholarship money?  There are opportunities which may fit you perfectly, but don’t know about.

To win a share of the billions of dollars available in college scholarships, you don’t necessarily have to be a 4.0 student or have scored a perfect 2400 on the SAT* or 36 on the ACT* – though that helps too.  There are many unusual, little-known scholarships available for students of diverse backgrounds and lifestyles, but who may not have the strongest academic records. Here are just a few: Continue Reading

How to Get Good Grades Without Getting Burned Out

If you’re currently in college or follow Dan Schwabel’s Personal Branding blog, you’ve probably heard of Study Hacks. If you haven’t heard of this blog, created by MIT doctoral student and author of How to Become a Straight-A Student, Cal Newport, read on.
Study Hacks is all about optimizing your college experience. Too bad Newport started it in late 2007, after I had already graduated. His article on how to ace blue book exams would have come in handy. But he doesn’t just blog about taking exams. He also blogs about how to prepare for them in ways that won’t have you dragging yourself out of bed the next morning because you were cramming until the wee hours of the night before. Math majors can read his blogs about acing Calculus and about how he earned top marks in Discrete (finite) Mathematics.
If you’re just now learning about Study Hacks, you probably missed his post back in early November about his search for students with college success stories for him to consider using in his next book. He may have already amassed all the stories he needs, but just in case there’s room for one more, you can email him at author@calnewport.com
More recently, Newport posted an article about a scholarship that’s being offered by his friend, Ramit. It’s called, I Will Teach You To Be Rich Scholarship for Social Innovation, and the deadline for entries is January 15, 2009. The deadline for anyone who wants Newport’s feedback first have until January 10, 2009.
Study Hacks advocates relaxing and studying smarter, rather than harder – a practice that can easily lead to burn out – in order to get the most out of your college experience. This is especially important for students who are juggling classes and internships, in addition to extracurricular activities.
If you want to get good grades, manitain an active social life on campus, and still have enough energy for internships and sports, Study Hacks is the blog for you.