HOW TO GET MONEY FOR COLLEGE

Want to get money for college?  Want an affordable education?  Here's the secret: most times it's going to come down to hard work, luck, and the paperwork-based judgments of someone you've never met before.

The magic formula: Hard work + Luck = Education

I sit at the library computer with a library book.  The library book is roughly the dimensions of a standard-size telephone book.  The book is Peterson's How to Get Money for College 2013 guidebook.  This post will take longer to create than the thirty minutes I am designating at present.  Coupled with my experience in the jungle of our tertiary education system, I will attempt to shine light on an incredibly pertinent subject.

My number 1 piece of advice: Avoid debt at all costs; until it is something you are willing to live with and settle into repaying.  Don't hesitate to take some time for self-discovery or to pursue life goals.  Education comes in many shapes and forms.  Education is free in the most random of life experiences, the wisdom of elders, and of course, the public library.

<<<I read, I read, I read, I realize it's all the same hoopla that I've been reading since high school>>>

Going to college, then?  You've decided?
Okay Step 1. Jump through the hoops of Federal Aid.  Know what FAFSA is and how badly they are going to fuck you over.  Make heads & tails of SAR.  What is the SAR?  Good question.  Also known as the Student Aid Report, this will give you your EFC.  EFC?  Yes, yes, that is also know as 'Expected Family Contribution'.  If your family has saved up no money for this college education business, then this will tell you just how much debt you can expect to assume in your own name.  Congratulations!  And good luck making sense of what this number is going to mean for you in the long term.

Asking yourself what to do about
high cost of education?

Number 1 tip that nobody gave me: "...if you think your EFC is too high (hint: your EFC is always too high - it's like a yard sale - you are ALWAYS grappling for the lowest possible price), you should contact the college's financial aid office and ask whether additional aid is available.  Many private high-cost colleges are willing to work with families to help make attendance at their institutions possible.  Most colleges also allow applicants to appeal their financial aid awards, the budget used for you, or any of the elements used to determine the family contribution, especially if there are extenuating circumstance (somebody died or is dying) (both your parents lost their jobs and your family's heartless, personal account ran off with all your college savings) or if the information has changed since the application was submitted.  Some colleges may also reconsider an award based on a "competitive appeal," from another college (but you're gonna have to be pretty damn special)." (Peterson 3)
     If the appeal is unsuccessful, Peterson tells us there are 2 options:

• Your kid goes to a cheaper school (assuming your brat was smart enough to include a low-cost institution on their original list)
• Look into alternative methods of financing

Alternative methods of financing, you ask?  There is need based parental loans (similar to those offered when buying a house; the interest rates and repayment plans are far more reasonable) (hope you've got a good relationship with mom, pops, and their bank account).

Then there's quote-on-quote non-need based aid.  Don't be fooled.  You still need the money just as much.  In this sector, the options are seemingly infinite:

• Lemonade stand
• Sell your soul
• Weekly bakesales
• Get a job, maybe two (because, let's get serious, being a student isn't enough)
• Write a book, sell millions of copies
• Cyber-marry yourself to a scholarship website
• Rob a bank and other creative, ballsy, unethical schemes (moral cost high) ("dirty money")(do not major in philosophy)
• Join ROTC (pray you get the scholarship)
• Write wealthy person, eloquently beg for funds
• Church/community scholarships
• Awards based on ethnicity, parent's job, specialty circumstances
• Talent-based athletic, merit, or performing arts scholarships
• National scholarships (Mational Meritt Scholarship Program, the Coca-Cola Scholarship, Gates Millenium Scholars, Intel Science Talent Search, and the U.S. Senate Youth Program)
• School-specific scholarships (Note: many of these will be limited to Freshman applicants only)

 More on cyber-marriage to scholarship sites:

Useful Scholarship Sites

• www.fastweb.com
• http://www.cappex.com/ 
• www.collegeboard.org
• www.collegenet.com
• www.embark.com
• www.graduatetutor.com
• www.thesalliemaefund.org
• www.finaidfacts.org/scholarships.htm

Interesting Site Relevant to This Post:

•  http://www.collegehumor.com/article/3533843/college-cost-fact 

Savings 'for your child's education' are a good idea if they ARE IN THE PARENTS' name.  "When it comes to maximizing aid eligibility, it is important to understand that student assets are assessed at a 20 percent rate and parental assets at about 5 percent."

Also, a fun tidbit: "In searching for merit-based scholarships, keep in mind that there are relatively few awards (compared to those that are need-based), and most of them are highly competitive." (Peterson 4)

In other words, good luck, sucker.

Going to college is similar to buying a house.  An investment.  The "average college graduate will make a projected $1 million more than those with only a high school diploma".  A worthwhile investment.  Fine.  BUT WAKEUP WORLD.  You wouldn't let the average eighteen year-old go off and buy their own house right out of high school.  You wouldn't let them hop on a boat and navigate treacherous waters without any knowledge of sailing.

Or maybe you would.  Or maybe you didn't know better, or you didn't know how to help.  Feel as helplessly lost and directionless as your college-thirsty young person?  Education comes in many shapes and forms.

I've immersed myself in national/federal service programs.  Through my work with organizations such as AmeriCorps and the California Conservation Corps, I've had the opportunity to expand my leadership experience, gain practical work skills, network for future job opportunities, and above all, serve people in communities across the nation.  I have been fed, housed, trained, paid a minimal stipend, and given the opportunity to earn scholarship.  I have also been given the opportunity to make lifelong friends and unforgettable experiences.  I have been given time to live debt-free and to save up money for backpacking adventures and bucket list dreams.  I am lucky to know what I want to study when I return to school, but for anyone who is uncertain, do not be afraid to leave the institution.  Knowledge of what you want to study comes with knowledge of self.  Take some time to do self-exploration.  Knowledge, I repeat, comes in many forms.   
Experience is an excellent teacher.  

Real teachers are great too - educational institutions too - but lets get this straight:

if you are passionate about what you're going to school for it helps to feel like you're not squandering class time, your time, and precious dollars to attend that school for a degree that you may or may not have even needed.  In that respect, know before you go.

"One thorn of experience is worth a whole wilderness of warning."

- JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL, Among My Books

"A baby has brains, but it doesn't know much. Experience is the only thing that brings knowledge, and the longer you are on earth the more experience you are sure to get."

- L. FRANK BAUM, The Wonderful Wizard of Oz

"Experience, if we only learn by it, is cheap at any price."

- IVAN PANIN, Thoughts

"Experience gives us the tests first and the lessons later."

 - NAOMI JUDD, public radio interview, 1994

"Whoso is content with pure experience and acts upon it has enough of truth."

- JOHANN WOLFGANG VON GOETHE, The Maxims and Reflections of Goethe

"The field of experience is the whole universe in all directions. Theory remains shut up within the limits of human faculties."

- JOHANN WOLFGANG VON GOETHE, The Maxims and Reflections of Goethe

"To describe externals, you become a scientist. To describe experience, you become an artist."

- TIMOTHY LEARY, Change Your Brain

"The trouble with learning from experience is that you never graduate."

- DOUG LARSON, attributed, The Ship of Thought

"It's easy to say yes to being happy, but it's harder to agree to grief and loss and transience and to the fact that desire is fathomless and ultimately unfillable. At some point I realized that you don't get a full human life if you try to cut off one end of it, that you need to agree to the entire experience, to the full spectrum of what happens."

- JANE HIRSHFIELD, The Atlantic Online, Sep. 18, 1997

"All experience is an enrichment rather than an impoverishment."

- EUDORA WELTY, One Writer's Beginnings

"We learn of great things by little experiences."

- BRAM STOKER, "The Jewel of the Seven Stars"

I attach myself to these quotes because I believe, so passionately, in learning.  I learned, after a semester in school, that I was fresh out of the starting gate - 18 and not yet ready for massive amounts of debt.  I attended, at a cost of roughly $18,000, a private liberal arts institution for 1 semester (plus a one month winter term).  I had the time of my life.

I went sailing in the waters of tertiary education, if only briefly, and learned (out of necessity) a great deal about how to plan for the successful navigation of the waters I had jumped into -

For now, I explore the skies.  When I return to the seas, I will be more prepared.  And, having learned a great deal of what was to be learned from the skies, I will have a stronger sense of self and my place in the world.  Then I've got the rest of my life to explore other realms, of land, of course, and of the unknown.

Best of luck,

S.A.M.