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

Scholarship Opportunities for Multicultural Women

Here is an opportunity to help women who are multicultural pursue their dreams of careers in healthcare.

Tuition hikes at colleges and universities across the nation are putting the squeeze on many young people and forcing families to find new ways to pay for higher education or consider forgoing college altogether. In an effort to ease the burden to students during these rough economic times and increase the number of underrepresented minorities in medicine, the American Heart Association’s Go Red For Women(TM)and Macy’s, its national sponsor, offer the Go Red(TM) Multicultural Scholarship Fund. Continue Reading

Modern Alternatives to Paying for College

The downturn in the economy has caused a lot of parents – and students, too – to rethink how they are going to pay for college in the coming years. Kara McGuire discusses one alternative some parents have come up with in her article for the Minneapolis Star-Tribune, Pay Dirt: Put College Pay Plan to Paper.
The alternative McGuire discusses in her article is something like a contract, between parents and their children, that outlines who’s responsible for what expense. One family decided that their son should pay for his own books, but that they would foot the bill for everything else.
“[D]iscussing how to pay for college is more critical than ever now, given the recession, the negative performance of many college savings plans in 2008, tougher credit standards, lower home values and steep tuition increases,” says McGuire.
As much as they may want to, some parents simply can’t afford to give their children the same deal they received when they were in college. But having students contribute to their own education isn’t such a bad thing. “[T]hey’re less likely to skip class when the bar down the street has $1 burger night,” McGuire surmises.
Parents and their children can get together and get specific about how much each will contribute toward college expenses. Some parents also include academic performance in their agreements. It doesn’t really matter what kind of arrangement parents make with their children. What matters, according to McGuire’s article, is that some sort of formal agreement be put down on paper and signed by everyone.
The difficulty in paying for college and the extra responsibility on the shoulders of students may make paid internships even more desirable and harder to get in the coming years.

Paying for College Doesn’t Have to Be a Trade-off

Whether you’re going to college for the first time, going back to complete your studies or pursue a graduate degree, paying for tuition is not likely to be easy. One way students and recent college graduates have come up with to help ease the financial burden is opening franchises. Another way to earn extra money to pay off college debts is online trading.
It may not sound like an option, but online brokers like Firstrade make it affordable for anyone to invest in the future. Because they are a discount broker, Firstrade has affordable fees and other incentives like no-fee IRAs.
It’s true the economy is struggling but that doesn’t mean that all stock trading has come to a halt. The beauty of investing in stocks, bonds, mutual funds, etc., is that your money works for you instead of vice versa. Firstrade has an interactive demo, a site tour and a Knowledge Center to help anyone interested in online trading to learn about the numerous investment options available as well as the tax implications involved. They also offer live chats with Firstrade representatives. Students who invest a portion of their income from part-time jobs, paid internships, or franchises while they’re going to college might end up with more than enough to pay off their student loans after graduation.