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by Alexis Mattera

The true cost of a college education is seldom the number that’s printed in school brochures and on various college comparison lists. When you figure in federal aid, scholarships, grants, room and board, books and supplies, that price fluctuates. One thing remains constant - higher education doesn’t come cheap - but a new poll finds students are willing to stretch their finances for several key factors.

In April, right up until enrollment deadlines, students were still considering “too expensive” schools and were willing to stretch to pay for their education, poll conductors the College Board and the Art & Science Group report. While it would be more financially sound to select the school with the lower tuition and better financial aid package, “too expensive” colleges remained in play if they had strong academics in students’ fields of interest, were places students felt comfortable, had prestigious academic reputations or had excellent records of graduate school acceptance or good job placement after students graduated. Here’s the breakdown:

• Twenty-six percent of students surveyed said their family would have to stretch a lot, but “I think we’ll make it.”
• Twenty-two percent chose “I’m not sure how my family will afford to send me to college, but I believe we’ll work something out when the time comes.”
• Eleven percent said, “I don’t think my family can afford to send me to college, but we are going to try.” Nearly 40 percent of students surveyed did not have a sense of long-term costs, citing “no idea” what their likely monthly payment on student loans would be after graduation.

If you think back to every award show you’ve ever seen, you’ll recall those who do not win always say it is an honor just to be nominated. The same can be said for college admissions: It’s an amazing achievement to be accepted to a prestigious college but is attending worth it if the cost of attendance is going to drive you and your family into debt?

by Emily

Community service projects benefit those around you, provide valuable learning experiences, and add an impressive dimension to your resume.  They also provide numerous opportunities for community service scholarships, such as this week's Scholarship of the Week.  The Gloria Barron Prize for Young Heroes seeks to award young people who initiate significant service projects as elementary or high school students.

The Barron Prize is awarded to young people who have created a service project that has positively affected other people, animals, or the planet. The project should go beyond fulfilling a school requirement or overcoming a personal challenge and should touch the lives of others and be capable of inspiring others to also make a difference.  Students interested in applying will have to write a scholarship essay describing their project, and will also need three letters of recommendation and a letter from an adult nominator who is familiar with their work.

Prize: $2,500 to be applied towards the winner's higher education or continuing their service project>/p>

Eligibility: Applicants must be between the ages of 8 and 18 by April 30, 2009 and must be legal residents of the United States or Canada.  Students must be nominated by an adult who is familiar with their project and must be nominated as individuals, not as groups.

Deadline: April 30, 2009

Required Material: The student nominee and the adult nominator must each complete an essay of no more than 1,500 words describing the nominee's service project.  Applicants must also provide three letters of recommendation. Additional reference materials are also welcome.

Further details about the application process can be found by conducting a free college scholarship search on Scholarships.com. Once the search is completed, students eligible for this scholarship award will find it in their search results.

by Emily

While April may be the cruelest month, March can be especially rough for students bound for college or graduate school.  Late March and early April are when admissions decisions and financial aid letters roll out for those not immediately accepted or rejected by their dream schools, and around now, things are getting pretty agonizing.  While a large part of March is consumed by waiting, even those who have already received good news may be consumed by the crushing dread of all the work to be done before September.  After all, if you get into a college or graduate school, you still have to figure out how to pay for it, what classes to take, what forms to complete, what to do with your life between now and then, and for many students, how to graduate on time, as well.  So, while you may still be waiting for a decision, there are things you can do in March to make April through August easier.

First, budget your time.  Figure out the things you'll need to do, and make a plan to get them done.  While you can't yet pick your classes or contact an unassigned roommate to figure out who is bringing the fridge or the TV, you can take care of other things.

If you haven't done so yet, complete the FAFSA.  If you did a FAFSA with your 2007 tax information, do your 2008 taxes and submit a correction.  Check your student aid report to see if you were chosen for verification, a process roughly equivalent to an audit of your FAFSA that is conducted by your college.  Colleges receive a glut of verification forms towards the start of the school year, and a delay in completing it can result in a delay in financial aid.  If you're not sure you've done everything you need to receive aid on time, contact the college to make sure.  It's better to find out now than to find out on the first day of classes when you need to buy books and find that you can't.

Keep searching for scholarships and submitting scholarship applications.  Deadlines are approaching rapidly, and available scholarships for the 2009-2010 academic year will only get more sparse as you approach the start of the fall semester.  This doesn't just go for high schoolers--if you're a soon-to-be graduate student with an acceptance letter in hand, but no assistantship or fellowship, don't count on funding emerging later. This can and does happen, but many schools make these awards with their admission decisions.

If you've received your financial aid award letter at your college of choice and it's come up drastically short, look into options for appealing it, especially if your financial circumstances have changed or if you've gotten a better offer from a different school.  You may also want to start shopping around for student loans. You might not be able to apply until summer (and you might not want to if you're currently applying for scholarships), but knowing what's out there now can help later.

If you take these steps now, then it will be easier to direct your spring and summer towards enjoying (or enduring) school, preparing to graduate, and figuring out your summer plans.  You'll also be less rushed and less likely to forget to do important things, like signing up to register for classes or mailing in a deposit on time.

by Agnes Jasinski

If you're a decent writer, essay scholarships may be your opportunity to shine and win awards to help you cover your college costs. This week's Scholarship of the Week doesn't ask for things like your race or financial status. All it asks for is an essay and verification that you'll be enrolled in at least three credit hours this summer or fall.

The Alvin Cox Memorial Scholarship asks applicants to write an essay on what you've probably already thought about - their reasons for deciding to go to college. (An essay like this could also easily be retooled to serve other purposes, from personal statements to other awards that have broad essay requirements.) The fund was created in 2006 in memorial of Alvin Cox, a public school teacher for more than 40 years whose passion was matching students with financial aid opportunities so they may have a way to pay for college. Although the prize money may not seem very impressive, if you're a natural when it comes to the written word, winning several scholarships like this one will make a difference when you're determining how much to borrow to pay for college.

Prize:

Eligibility:

Undergraduates and graduates enrolled in at least three credit hours this summer or fall are eligible to apply. Those attending career schools are also eligible to apply, as long as they describe why they chose a career school in their essays. (About 10 percent of the fund's scholarships are awarded to those attending career schools.) High school students enrolled in dual credit courses that require out-of-pocket expenses are also eligible to apply.

Deadline:

May 31, 2010

Required Material:

Those interested in the scholarship must submit online their name, email address, academic year, and and an essay based on the following: Please discuss any factors that influenced your decision to pursue a college degree. You may discuss any people who affected your decision making process and explain how your decision may have been different without their influence.

Further details about the application process can be found by conducting a free college scholarship search on Scholarships.com. Once the search is completed, students eligible for this scholarship award will find it in their search results.

by Agnes Jasinski

Sports scholarships are not only available to athletes from their respective colleges. A number of professional organizations and private groups offer generous awards to student athletes looking for some help to meet their college costs. This week’s Scholarship of the Week targets student bowlers already in college who are able to maintain good grades while competing in the sport on the amateur level.

The Billy Welu Scholarship from the Professional Bowler Association awards student bowlers with $1,000 scholarships. Applicants must not only be decent bowlers, but good students, as well, and meet GPA requirements associated with the award. Welu, for whom the award is named, was a charter member and Hall of Famer in the PBA who was a familiar voice in the sport as an analyst during Pro Bowlers Tour telecasts. If you’re a college student who competes in a different sport, though, make sure you check out some of our examples of sports scholarships and look beyond your college for award funding, as there are hundreds of awards out there that target student athletes.

Prize:

Eligibility:

Deadline:

Required Material:

Those interested in the scholarship must fill out applications available on the PBA’s website. Applications will ask student bowlers to detail their experience in the sport, and write a 500-word essay on how the award will positively affect their bowling, academic, and personal goals. Applicants must also send a reference letter and transcript along with their completed applications.

Further details about the application process can be found by conducting a free college scholarship search on Scholarships.com. Once the search is completed, students eligible for this scholarship award will find it in their search results.

By Derrius Quarles

Humans give off carbon dioxide for plants to use and plants give off oxygen for humans to survive.  Water is constantly converted into a gas through heat where it then rises and cools to fall as rain, snow, etc. These processes have occurred for thousands of years and they are also some of the most efficient processes known to man. Why are these natural processes so efficient? It is because they use a process known as recycling. Recycling is a process observed in many natural systems, and it may be the most important concept for you to understand when completing the scholarship process. You have written your personal statements (essays), gotten your recommendations, created your resume, and made a scholarship list. However, if you do not learn how to recycle these items, you will soon find that it is difficult and vey time-consuming to apply for the 15 or more scholarships on your list. If you learn how to take a paragraph from your college application essay and insert it there, take a paragraph from your past scholarship essay on adversity and insert it here, you will soon have an entirely new essay that you can use for a different scholarship.

Recycling application sections sounds like a fairly simple idea, right? Not necessarily. Recycling when doing scholarship applications is a great idea, but it’s not exactly simple. It can be an effective tool if used properly. If used incorrectly, however, it can have disastrous effects and can be a quick way to lose potential financial aid. “So, how do I recycle effectively?” you may ask. The answer is that you have to ensure that while recycling application sections such as a personal statement (essay) or recommendation that you tailor the personal statement or recommendation to each specific application. If you are applying to a scholarship that awards money based on academic achievement, it is not the best idea to recycle and use a recommendation previously written by a community service organizer because they cannot speak first hand about your abilities in the classroom the way a teacher can. You also may want to go through your essays and ask your recommenders to make the small or large changes in order to tailor your applications. If your essay states that “I feel I deserve the Dell Scholarship because…” yet you are applying to the Wal-Mart scholarship, you probably just lost that scholarship. An application package is somewhat like a suit, it needs to tailored in order to look its best; although it may look okay without tailoring, it will look great with it.

Here are some quick rules for recycling sections of your scholarship application:

1. Be sure that each section of your scholarship applications is tailored for the specific type of scholarship you are applying for- If it’s a community service type of scholarship. Your recommendations and essay should talk about your experiences with community service etc.
2. You can recycle an entire essay and use it over if it applies to the question being asked- If you wrote an essay in the past about your love for science and are applying to a scholarship related to science, you can probably use that entire essay over and save valuable time.
3. Use different parts of past personal statements or essays to create entirely new essays- A few paragraphs from old essays with a few new sentences added to them is an entirely new essay.
4. Get copies of your recommendations from your recommenders- Make sure each copy has their signature on them and you can use them in the future
5. Always have copies of your resume, standardized test scores (ACT, SAT), and FAFSA Student Aid Report (SAR)- You will definitely need these items the majority of the time when applying to scholarships and having copies ready saves time.

Using and sticking to these rules will be an easy way to save time, reduce stress, and finish scholarship applications well before the deadline.  Remember, if used properly, recycling is not only good for the environment; it’s good for the scholarship application process as well.<,/p>

Derrius L Quarles is a 19-year-old freshman at Morehouse College. He hopes to go to medical school after he graduates with a degree in psychology and biology and a minor in public health, and to one day work on the public health policies of his hometown, Chicago, and beyond. To help him achieve those academic and career ambitions, Derrius has won more than $1.1 million in scholarships, including a full scholarship to attend Morehouse, since graduating from Chicago’s Kenwood Academy High School with a 4.2 GPA. Derrius was awarded a Gates Millennium scholarship and won a number of other highly competitive awards, many of which he found while searching for scholarships at Scholarships.com. He is the first in his family to attend college, and spent his childhood in the foster care system before becoming the “Million Dollar Scholar.” This is the fifth in a series of posts Derrius is writing for Scholarships.com on how he was able to fund his education, along with advice about the scholarship application process.

by Agnes Jasinski

The health of the environment is on many people’s minds these days as the BP spill continues to stream oil into the Gulf. If your interest in Earth’s natural resources goes so far as to determine your chosen field of study, this week’s Scholarship of the Week could be for you. The Barona Sustainable Environment Scholarship from the Barona Band of Mission Indians and Barona Resort and Casino is open to California students majoring in horticulture studies, turf grass management, natural resources management, and the environmental sciences.

If you don’t quite fit the criteria for this one but are entering college with an environmental streak, make sure you explore other green scholarships. Scholarship money isn’t only awarded to students coming to college looking to major in a “green” field of study, but to those interested in other environmentally-friendly activities, such as community service or advocacy work related to the environment.

Prize:

Eligibility:

Deadline:

Required Material:

Further details about the application process can be found by conducting a free college scholarship search on Scholarships.com. Once the search is completed, students eligible for this scholarship award will find it in their search results.

by Agnes Jasinski

The name of this week’s Scholarship of the Week, the Kor Memorial Scholarship, may suggest that applicants be familiar with Klingon, the language created for use in the “Star Trek” series. The main criteria, however, is that all undergraduates and graduates nominated for the award be interested in the field of language study, whether that’s Klingon or the more traditional Spanish, French, or general linguistics degrees.

The purpose of the Kor Memorial Scholarship is to recognize and encourage scholarship in language study, and to award creative and innovative students. Applicants must be nominated in order to be considered for the award, so if you think this award is a good fit, make sure to talk to your academic department chair or dean. Winners are chosen by the director of the Klingon Language Institute and a panel of qualified language specialists. If you’re interested in checking out more awards with unique criteria, we have a long list of unusual scholarships that reward students their interest in mule deer, duck calling, and everything in between.

Prize: $500

Eligibility: All nominees must be full-time students at the time of the award and in a program leading to a degree in a field of language study.

Deadline: June 1, 2010

Required Material: In addition to a nominating letter from a department chair or dean at the student’s school, applicants must submit a resume highlighting their education, experience, awards, and community service.  Applicants must also submit two additional letters of recommendation from departmental faculty, and a brief statement of goals related to the field of language study.

Further details about the application process can be found by conducting a free college scholarship search on Scholarships.com. Once the search is completed, students eligible for this scholarship award will find it in their search results.

by Emily

Environmental issues are becoming increasingly important to people and governments worldwide.  Not surprisingly, many scholarship opportunities exist for students committed to improving their environments and the lives of those around them.  One such scholarship is this week's Scholarship of the Week, The Brower Youth Awards.

Since 2000, the Earth Island Institute has been sponsoring the Brower Youth Awards, which recognize young activists for environmental and social justice with $3,000 monetary awards and other resources to further their education and activism.  The awards were created in memory of David Brower, an environmental activist and the founder of the Earth Island Institute.  Students interested in applying should be between the ages of 13 and 22, and should be able to show previous leadership in an activist or community service campaign that has had a demonstrable impact on environmental or social welfare.

Prize:

$3,000 plus a trip to California for the awards ceremony and a wilderness camping trip, and the opportunity to continue working with the Earth Island Institute on future projects

Eligibility:

Students ages 13-22 who reside in North America and are current youth activist leaders 

by Emily

Here's an essay contest especially suited for all those history buffs who can't get enough of World War II documentaries on the history channel, as well as the English majors and budding political scientists fascinated by propaganda campaigns.  If you're interested in researching and writing about the invasion of Poland in 1939, you could win $2,000 in scholarship money through this week's Scholarship of the Week.

In recognition of the 70th anniversary of the Nazi-Soviet invasion of Poland, the Kosciuszko Foundation and the Polish Army Veterans of America are sponsoring an essay contest for American students ages 18-22.  On September 1, 1939, after waging a sustained propaganda campaign, the Nazis invaded Poland from the east, and on September 17, 1939, the Soviets invaded from the west without a formal declaration of war.  The Historical Essay contest asks students to research these events in Poland, paying particular attention the propaganda used by the Nazis and Soviets leading up to each invasion and the impact the 1939 invasion of Poland had on the international community.

Prize:

First prize: $2,000

Second prize: $1,000

Eligibility:

Must be a current U.S. resident and between the ages of 18-22 as of September 1, 2009