I am in need to find loans or scholarships fast. Any suggestions?

Hi Brandy,

You have several options when looking for funding for your college education including scholarships and grants. According to the Dept. of Education, scholarships are typically merit based while grants are need based. You can apply for Federal student aid through FASFA (https://studentaid.ed.gov/sa/fafsaa) where based on income and several other factors, you can receive grants, loans, and/or work-study funds. The university you'll be attending will have positions available too that are work-study based where students needing financial assistance will be given first preference. You can also look up different scholarships through websites like scholarships.com which represent a database of various scholarships available for you to apply to.

Hope this helps!

Ben

Hi Brandy! That is a common struggle and you are smart to ask! I would recommend a few things (including echo-ing Ben's response about FASFA)...

1. Apply to schools with more affordable tuition. Something many students do is start by taking community college classes at your local community college to cover the "gen-ed" classes that you can then transfer to the college you'd like to transfer to (it's smart to speak with someone from admissions/registrar of the universities you are considering transferring to, to see which gen ed requirements they will accept transfer credits from first)... that way you may be able to graduate a year or two sooner and save money. AP credits are great too if you have those at your high school, as well as CLEP exams to test out of things like Spanish 101. Testing out or transferring as much as you can can save a lot of money!
2. Apply to leadership programs, honors programs, etc. Ask your admission's counselor about which programs offer scholarships, sometimes there are even smaller, lesser-known scholarships that are easy to get. See how your skills or strengths can help you match well with these.
3. Commute. If you can go to a local university in driving distance and living with your parents/someone close to a university is a viable option, this can save you thousands a year in dorm costs! Often, on-campus room & board is the bulk of costs.
4. Ask about fast-track and online programs. Some schools offer fast track programs where you can take classes more in a more condensed time to finish faster, and save tuition money.

Basically, it takes hard work to make it more affordable but it's totally possible and worth it! Also, getting degrees that are going to help you get a stable job and make good money will also help when you have loans to pay back... if you can (finance, economics, pre-med, pre-law, business, engineering, etc):). Good luck!

Brandy,

Like Ben mentioned, I would definitely look at FAFSA. Other sites that I have heard students use is ScholarshipZone, Scholarships and StudentScholarships. Another easy to use Scholarship site that has the amount, due date, etc. and easy to find is Scholarships360. I actually like SCHOLARSHIPS.com since you can choose different fields, including deadline, gender, academic and athleticism.

One last thing that I heard from my coworker is that his daughter's school, through her counselor, was able to get a list of scholarships she would qualify for. Some kind of program her high school counselor had access to so she could give her a print out or send electronically all the scholarships she would qualify for, but was up to her to reach out and actually apply for the scholarships. Good Luck!