Pay for school the smart way, not the hard way!
Everyone wants to use someone else’s money. It’s just how the world works. The wealthy people want to keep their money in investments and those who are not wealthy need money to get the education they desire. Educational costs are a subject all on their own but paying for college or even trade schools can be out of reach for many.
Smart Tip:
Let’s take a look at how to get the biggest bang for your buck ( pun intended )
A student can get a job at Home Depot and get paid $14.05 per hour. While this is nice, just think of the hourly return on that students time if they used those same hours to apply for scholarships? They could make 70x that with 1 scholarship for 1000.00
For this reason alone, I recommend that students consider their scholarship search a job. It should be scheduled into their week and they should be committed to using those hours to apply to scholarships.
If it is so easy, why don’t more students do it? That is a great question. Here are the obstacles that I see frequently and how I’ve helped students address these.
Obstacles to Winning Scholarships
No Motivation - This is #1 on my list for a reason. Just like everyone, we tend to pay attention to the most urgent things on our list. For this reason, Imagine Scholarships offers hundreds of videos to keep students motivated and engaged in the process. We all need a little motivation to remind us of the prize at the end of our hard work. We are committed to constant contact with students to keep them motivated and eager to find money for college or trade schools.
Student think their family makes to much money to get a scholarship - This simply just is not true. There are scholarships for EVERYONE. One of the wealthiest students I know got one of the largest scholarships I know of. Some scholarships are need based, many are not. One thing I know for sure is you have to start applying if you want to ever receive a scholarships.
Students don’t know where to look - Finding QUALITY scholarships is hard. Finding scholarships that are sketchy is easy. Not all scholarships are created to actually help students. At Imagine, we try our hardest to only offer “real” quality scholarships.
Students don’t understand the full value of what scholarships can do - Many students don’t have a concept of how much college truly cost or the scale of those dollars when it comes to the amount of hours of work needed to pay those expenses. I find that only when students have to start making and spending their own money does the gravity of the cost truly start to make sense.
When thinking of the smart way to pay for college instead of the hard way, there are many places to begin looking for scholarships. Here are a few of my favorites…..
Smart Ways to Find Scholarships
Local businesses
Institutional scholarships
Challenge any financial aid packages you are offered and ask for more. We have a post about that here with more information on how to do that.
If you don’t win a scholarship, try again, and again and again. Persistence pays off.
Have a few great essays ready to submit and personalize those for scholarships that require essays. At Imagine, we have videos and many resources to help students write the perfect essay.
Have a strategy or a scholarship playbook. You have to have a plan of how you’ll tackle the scholarship process.
Organization is key. Imagine Scholarships gives you a way to keep track of scholarships, save scholarships and keeps everything in one tidy location. Whatever system you choose, stick with it and keep it organized. Years ago when working with my own kids in this process, I started with a paper filing system and then moved to a massive spreadsheet. Neither of these were able to keep of with the large scale of scholarships we were working with. That is one of the reasons I built Imagine Scholarships.
Don’t get discouraged. Disappointment will come but it has no bearing on you as a student. Finding scholarships is often a numbers game. Keep applying, you will eventually hit the “jackpot.”
Apply to all scholarships that you are a good match for. Some students think the small scholarships aren’t worth applying to. I think all scholarships that you are qualified for are worth applying to. The small ones add up quickly.
Scholarships don’t stop once you get to college. In fact, there are more scholarships waiting for you at college than before you arrived. This is a marathon, not a sprint. Keep applying for as long as the funds are needed.
With these things in mind, you can pay for school the smart way, not the hard way.