The following question was submitted via our Ask the Experts form. If you have any questions about financial aid or student loans, we’re here to help. Our team of experts is happy to provide advice based on their decades of experience in college financing. Read on to learn the steps you’ll need to follow to get financial aid if you have no or low income!
Dear Insiders,
I have no income and my daughter wants to go to college desperately. Can she still apply to colleges, and how can we afford to pay for her to go?
-Jessica
With your college applications in the mail, you may be playing the waiting game until next month. While you may have to be patient to see where you got in, make sure to stay active when looking for financial aid! We here at College Money Insider are keeping an eye out for scholarship opportunities, so here are some of the best we could find this month.
A great place to start your search is with our affiliates at ScholarshipPoints.com, where you can earn points for the chance to win up to $10,000 in scholarship money. Don’t miss out!
Let us know if you have any questions in the comments section below! Good luck.
The following is a guest post from John Carpenter of AskJohnAboutCollege.com:
Many of the students who work with me are international kids. They come from China and Haiti, Germany and Ghana, Nepal and Costa Rica–and dozens of other places as well. And while they are as different from each other as you can possible imagine, they all have one thing in common when it comes to attending college in the United States: in order to get a visa to study in the US, they all have to demonstrate where the money is coming from to pay for college.
Some colleges recruit international students partly for their ability to pay full tuition, and in fact, many families outside the US save and save and save for years to be able to pay cash to send their children to a great school in the States. However, increasingly, colleges and universities are realizing that having international kids on campus is good for more than just financial reasons.
The following is a guest post from Brenda Ortega of The Educational Bar:
Get the most out of your student loan by learning to budget
College or university is a learning opportunity for the student both in and out of the classroom. When it comes to cost, most students aren’t prepared for the student loans they’ll have apply for to pay for tuition costs, accommodations and school supplies. A first year college student requires a stockpile of new school supplies for college, and because they are away from home (probably for the first time in their lives) those will include items and furniture for their new dorm room or apartment, personal items such as food and personal hygiene items, and class essentials such as a laptop, money to buy or rent textbooks.
Smart students start budgeting and collecting their supply needs the year before they leave for college. That way, they’re not stuck paying top dollar for things they need at the last minute. Here’s how:
With the calendar turning to 2012 and your college applications in the mail, it’s once again time to start thinking about financial aid. So how do you get your hands on some extra cash for college? If you haven’t already, be sure to file your FAFSA to make sure you get the Federal aid you need. Once that’s out of the way, it’s time to start looking for scholarship opportunities. Fortunately, we’re here to give you a cheat sheet to finding some great scholarships with upcoming deadlines.
To receive a monthly list of upcoming scholarship deadlines right in your inbox, as well as our other financial aid advice and tips, subscribe to College Money Insider here – it’s free!
Additionally, check out our affiliates at ScholarshipPoints.com for the opportunity to win up to $10,000 in scholarship dollars!
Here are your January 2012 Scholarship Deadlines:
