Sep 17, 2008 3:10 pm US/Pacific
Hard Work Pays Off With Free College For Students
BOSTON (CBS) ―
It's a problem facing millions of families with teens headed off to college: they don't qualify for financial aid, but they can't afford to write a check either.
But here's the good news, there is money available for students if they are willing to put in a little work.
The average student graduates with a diploma and about $20,000 in debt. But some students have a much larger burden.
"I'm paying about 24 (thousand) a year," said one Northeastern student. That totals to about $100,000 dollars by the end of school.
A typical student loan is 10 years. That means she'll have to pay more than $1,100 dollars a month to pay it off. For most college graduates, that's a huge chunk of their monthly budget.
"Families are looking at really big numbers," said Robert Weinerman of College Coach in Watertown, Mass.
But he says, students don't have to take on that kind of debt to get a good education.
"If you're a good student, it's probably possible to go find a school that you could go to for free," he said.
The key, says Weinerman, is winning scholarships.
Here's more good news; you don't have to be a straight 'A' student or an amazing athlete.
Just ask Jayme Filmore of Dorchester. She's a freshman at Northeastern and she won't pay a dime for her diploma.
She won a scholarship from an organization that gives money to students who plan to study math and science, but she wasn't at the top of her class.
"I had average SAT scores and my average was a 'B,'" she said.
Weinerman says there are a few secrets to landing scholarships; the most important is to start early.
"We think in 9th grade is not too early," he said.
Weinerman says finding scholarships and their criteria is easy and students who get an early start have a clear advantage over those who start looking as seniors.
"If only they'd known they needed 15 more hours of community service, or their biology project should have focused on a different kind of plant," he explained.
Weinerman advises students to choose a school that wants them. If you are a strong candidate, the school may be willing to offer you money. He also suggests applying to a school in a different part of the country.
Weinerman says colleges love geographic diversity, so a college in California may be more generous with financial aid than a school in your own backyard.
Finally, Weinerman says you have to be willing to work for it.
"It's like finding a job; the more effort you put in the more likely it is that you'll secure the funding," he said.
The bottom line, according to Weinerman, there's money out there for just about everyone.
"There's a scholarship out there for a good, solid skateboarder, or students who learned Klingon in high school," he said.
There are several searchable databases with literally millions of scholarships. Students can narrow them by their criteria to find ones that suit them best.
(© MMIX, CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved.)
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