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More Scholarships Equal Less Loans

My daughter is a Junior at St John's University in New York City.
I just checked her financial aid record and discovered that so far,
it has cost over $82,000 to attend.

$82,000 THOUSAND DOLLARS.

$82,012.36 to be exact. And she still has at least one more to go.
The tuition is $24,400 per year (and increasing).

$24,400 x 3 years adds up to about $72,000 (according to my calculations). So where did the other $10,012.36 come from?

FEES...
New Student Fee, University General Fee, Student Activity Fee, Late Payment Fee, ID Card Replacement Fee, A/R Interest (what's that?).

And this doesn't even include books (which average about
a hundred bucks each), food, transportation or room and board.
(She doesn't even live on campus).

According to St John's University - the cost of attendance
for the 2007-2008 Academic Aid Year will be:

Books and Supplies................. $1,000.00
Fees....................................... $640.00
Home Maintenance................... $2,700.00
Personal Expenses................... $1,800.00
Transportation......................... $1,100.00
Tuition.................................... $26,200.00

Total: .................. A Whopping $33,440.00

Damn!

Her grades are pretty good... All A's and a couple B's.
You'd think she could get some grants and scholarship money
since she's a good student. Well, she can.

But not $33,440.00 worth.

Which means the balance will have to come from loans.
By the time she graduates, she AND I, will be up to our eyeballs
in student loans and debt.

Now I don't know about you, but it took me years and years
to pay off my own student loans.

Now I have to start all over again
by taking out Parent Plus Loans to help pay for my daughter's education.

So, what's the solution?
The solution is MORE SCHOLARSHIPS.
More Scholarships = Less Loans.

College is more expensive than ever. The scholarships you win
can change your life forever.

Example... If you can pull off a $5,000 scholarship,
that's $5,000 less in student loans you have to take out.
A $5,000 student loan means 10 YEARS of paying
about $100 a month... EVERY MONTH!

Instead of paying that money to the government in the form
of student loan repayment, you could save about $12,000
or so for your retirement.

Assuming a modest 8 percent rate of appreciation,
that $12,000 can easily grow to over $120,000 in 30 years.

In 40 years, it'll grow to over $260,000!

That's a serious life style change. And that's just for a small
$5,000 scholarship. Just imagine what a $10,000, $20,000
or more in scholarships can do for your lifestyle.

Billion$ of dollars are available in scholarship money.

But the irony is that most students (and their parents)
don't know where, and more importantly, how to apply
for scholarship money.

Scholarship committees receive thousands of applications from
“Qualified” applicants. What this means to you is that the judges
can now be very selective about who they pick for the scholarship winner.

They get dozens (if not hundreds) of “perfect” applications.

So what you must remember is this… Your application has to be perfect.
No spelling mistakes, no typo errors or grammatical slipups.

Here are a few tips on writing your essay.

1) Heavy emphasis is placed on “work ethic”.
Whether you work hard in the home with “family responsibilities”
or are involved in student organizations or are on the varsity
sport field, you have to “Tell Your Story“.

Otherwise, the scholarship committee doesn’t know.
And if you are facing hardships, the key to winning the
scholarship is the part where you turn it around and talk about
how you are overcoming the hurdles to achieving your goals,
(not by telling a sob story).

2) Scholarship committees like it when you’ve helped people.
Most scholarships go to those students who spend time by
helping other people, whether through a job, work outside
the classroom or volunteer work.

3) When possibe, go into detail. Most scholarship essays have
word limits of some kind. Don’t summarize the most telling
parts of your story. Describe it passionately and give as
much detail as space permits.

4) Follow the instructions.
If the essay calls for 750 words or less, don’t go over.
The reason for this is that the judges have a dozen or more
“perfect” essays that did follow the instructions to the letter.
If you didn’t follow the instructions to the letter,
your application gets tossed… Period.

TIP:

Use a laser printer instead of ink jet.
Ink jet ink smudges easily and laser toner doesn’t.

5) Use a high-quality paper.
This may sound a little mundane but consider this…
95% of all essay papers received have been printed on “copy paper”.
To make your essay stand out from the thousands of others,
get a high-quality paper stock. High-quality paper doesn’t wrinkle
or crease as easily as copy paper.

Remember - Appearances Count!

Scholarship money can save you tens of thousands of dollars in
student loans which you have to pay back.
It is worth the little extra time and effort to make your application
Stand Out From The Crowd… Be Outstanding and Win!

Carl Willoughby has worked as a licensed Registered Representative for Prudential Insurance and as a Computer Programmer for New England Telephone Co. Visit his blog at: www.StudentLoanDebtConsolidationSite.com