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Things That Are Free but You Don’t Know

Some things in school are covered with your tuition and other fees. So you need to be aware of what is available for you on your campus.

Freebies Are Budget Stretchers

Getting freebies can really stretch your budget and they can be a real advantage when trying to make ends meet on a budget. Until you graduate getting free and cheap things are one of the few benefits of going to college. Here are some of the ones I found;

Filing with FAFSA

Grants are free money that is just out there for the grabbing for those that qualify. But, you will never know unless you file with FAFSA and get it in. A good percentage of students that file qualify for grants and low interest loans, by not filing you will never know.

Fastweb Freebie = Tuneweb

The Fastweb data base of scholarships and grants are well known and registration is free. However what is not so well known is that it gives away free downloadable music when you refer friends to the website. So register and get your friends to sign up and get free tunes.

Freebie Grub

At a good many campuses if you sling the hash at the campus cafeteria you can also chow down for free and I don’t mean scraping leftover food off your classmates dirty trays. I am talking about fresh cooked meals. You can scam free food off of dirty trays if you want but you do not have to work at the cafeteria for that.

Scam and Cram off the Fortune 500

A lot of big corporations like to play the good corporate neighbor by giving free things away on university campuses this is also good marketing for them and a good way for you to scam free things while you cram. The student center is the best place to find these freebies.

Nearby Freebies

Also keep an eye out for the smaller local businesses that do the occasional free give-a-ways to students at the local campus. Local business owned by alumni may give things away to starving students especially after ‘I went there too U.” wins the big game on Saturday.

Don’t Be Stingy Share

If you have any freebies ideas or know of any free offers for university students please share by posting them in the comments. Hungry students will appreciate it

There are thousands of college students paying much more for college than they have to, and that’s because they don’t apply for financial aid or take advantage of scholarships to defray their college expenses. Let’s look at some ways in which you can find low interest money for college and make going to college exciting once again.

Four different types of Student Loan

1. Grants and Scholarships – Grants and scholarships usually come from the federal government or the state, whereas scholarships can come from private outside sources or your college.

2. Education loans – education loans come from two places:

• Government loans that have low-interest rates
• Private loans, which are more expensive

3. Education tax benefits – You can save money on your income taxes by simply claiming your out-of-pocket costs for college expenses.

4. Work-study funds – Work-study helps you to work on campus and in return you get help with paying for school.

How to find money for college?

FAFSA
First you want to start by filling out the Free Application for Federal Student Aid form (FAFSA). The information you put on this form will help to determine the amount of award you qualify for. This is usually based on your financial need. However, even if you think you may not qualify, still fill out the form.

Apply for scholarships
Scholarships are a wonderful way to help pay for college or even to help cut the cost of having to pay for college on your own. There are a variety of scholarships that you can apply for online. Started by financial aid expert Mark Kantrowicz, FinAid and FastWeb are two online sites that will match you with a scholarship and even tell you how to apply for it. All you have to do is fill out the required information.

Even though some of the scholarships are small, they are still worth applying for. The best thing to do is to apply for a variety of awards, and the smaller the award the less competitive they are and easier to obtain.

Beware of scam artists – Don’t fall for it!

There are always scammers waiting to prey on the innocent and desperate. Don’t be one of their victims. As Kantrowitz said “You should never invest more than a postage stamp to find out information on a scholarship or apply for scholarships. And if you have to pay money to get money, it’s probably a scam.”

That’s good advice to live by. Now it’s time for you to go in search of the college money that has your name on it. And during your quest should you obtain other helpful tips on how to find low interest money for college we’d love to hear them.

Locating College Aid

• While college aid is available from various sources, in most cases the real difficult lies in qualifying for the loan. Financial aid for college studies is inevitable given the rising cost of education and increased financial dependence on outside sources. While scholarships and grants help you fund the education at zero cost, more often they not sufficient to cover the entire cost of education.
• The real impact of having taken a student loan is felt only at the time of repayment. Even a bachelor’s degree taken few tens of thousands of dollars to complete, leave alone the rest. The only place where the cost of tuition is never a problem is when you choose to go to a community college, but for that you should be aware of the many different sources from where you could fund your education.
• Are you good at some sport or special talent? Check out your college or community about the various scholarship programs and if you qualify for any of them, then make it a point to apply. Scholarship amounts are completely free, which means no liability. What stops you from procuring the free money?
• If you can afford to find a job in the university or college you study, there can be nothing like that. In addition to all scholarship and grant amounts, the amounts received from work while studying will help you meet up those extra unplanned expenses. Make sure you have sufficient time for both work and study.
• Student loan is the best source for college education. As specified earlier, free money grants are not always sufficient to meet the cost of education. So, what should you do in such cases, opt for loans. Both federal and private loans are offered to students who wish to pursue their college education.
• While where a choice exists between federal and private loans, it is a sensible option to go for federal loans both in terms of cost of loans and other benefits arising out of it, like deferment and loan forgiveness.
• Federal student loan funding comes from huge sources of funds earmarked for this purpose. Hence those of you, who are into serious financial over haul please submit your FAFSA application form and obtain need based grants like PELL grants and Subsidized Stafford Loans.
• What about taking classes online? There are several online colleges in existence, that offer excellent online coaching for various degrees namely associate, bachelors and masters. Online education costs much lesser than regular education and is an excellent choice of online learning.

While several strategies can be offered online, it is upto the students to decide which of the offers best suit your requirements at cost.

Student Loan Liability

Your planning for repaying student loan liability should begin soon after you have availed it. You start making arrangements for repaying your student loan even when your repayment liability has not started. By spending less and saving money, you create an emergency fund in case you do not get a job soon after completing your studies. The attitude of saving for your repayment benefits you a great deal when you start earning.

Getting the right attitude towards your liability repayment is very important. Repayment of loan can be made easier by making a right choice of various aspects of student loan. Opting for loans with deferment and loan forgiveness scheme is sure to help you a great deal, when you find it difficult to repay your amounts or when you want to delay the start of your repayment of loan installments.

Pay Off Student Loan

Paying off your student loan should be one of the top most priorities of students. It is liability which cannot be dispensed with even if you file your bankruptcy. Given that a liability is always painful, with monthly remainders of due installments and reducing your affordability of availing other loans, and any default counting seriously on your credit score, paying them off is the best thing to do.

Availing a student loan is one of the life changing decisions taken by students. Given the amount of loan due to be repaid, without a clear understanding and planning, it is sure to make you suffer seriously. Kindly make sure to set aside a reasonable percentage from your monthly earnings and if possible pay off those excess amounts you have towards principle repayments.

While paying off student loan is a big task to accomplish, avoid taking any further loans unless it is critically necessary. By this you make more funds available for repaying the student loan and get rid of it soon.

Payoff Student Loan – Things to note

• Opt for deferment if you choose to go back to studies or face economic hardship in paying the installments
• If you find the monthly loan installments are too high to manage, you can reduce them by expanding the tenure of your loan through consolidation
• If you find your student loan liability messing you up, opt to consolidate your loan, with minimum reduction in interest rate, you consolidate your liability into one single payment every month. There are a number of debt consolidation schemes available together with federal consolidation schemes
• Where you find it just impossible to repay your loans, opt for loan forgiveness programs. By complying with the requirements put forth, you can have most, if not all of your student loan forgiven.

The Blogging Scholarship

This scholarship is awarded to full-time post-secondary students in the United States who maintain a web blog. $10,000 is awarded annually to a college student who blogs about unique and interesting information about themselves and things that they are passionate about.

2009 Tylenol Scholarship

Tylenol is proud to support the future of healthcare with the annual TYLENOL® Scholarship program. Now in its 17th year, the program helps students who are pursuing careers in the medical field manage the rising costs of education. This year Tylenol has awarded $5,000 – $10,000 scholarships totaling $250,000 to forty outstanding students based on leadership qualities and academic performance.

Golden Key Scholarship

This collegiate honor society awards more than $500,000 in scholarships to undergraduate students on an annual basis. More than 700 students win each year.

USA Funds

USA Funds is the nation’s leading education-loan guarantor. A nonprofit organization, USA Funds works to enhance postsecondary-education preparedness, access and success by providing and supporting financial and other valued services. USA Funds will award $15,000 scholarship t students with economic need through the USA Funds Access to Education Scholarship.

The Jackie Robinson Foundation’s Scholarship Program

This program awards scholarships of up to $7,500 annually to minority high school students. Scholarships are meant for four-year college students who can demonstrate financial need and leadership potential.

AT&T

The AT&T Labs Fellowship Program awards scholarship funds and grants to women and minority post-graduate students. The AT&T Foundation has also announced a new scholarship program offered in conjunction with UNCF to provide scholarships for African-American children or stepchildren of regular full-time employees of AT&T, Inc. and its U.S. subsidiaries.

Scholastic Art and Writing Awards

One of the nation’s longest-running programs, the Scholastic Art and Writing Awards provide high school students with millions of dollars in scholarships. The awards are open to artists and writers.

Unmet Need Scholarship

Awarded by Sallie Mae to families with a combined income of $30,000, the Unmet Need Scholarship is designed for students who need at least $1,000 to add to their financial aid package. Unmet Need Scholarships are between $1,000 and $3,800.

ExxonMobil Corporation

ExxonMobile in partnership with SECME schools offers a variety of scholarships. These scholarships are awarded annually to minority students who are heading to programs in fields of math and engineering, fields that have historically lacked in diversity.

McDonald’s

The Ronald McDonald House Charities has awarded more than $29 million in the US to aid student dreams of receiving a top quality education. Scholarships are for those applicants who live in the US where there are participating local chapters. The applicant must be a high school senior and under 21 years of age. The scholarships are available for either four-year or two-year colleges.

Ford Motor

Society of Manufacturing Engineers Ford PAS Scholarships offers three $10,000 scholarships to graduating high school seniors who have also participated in the PAS program. PAS emphasizes the underrepresented students and promotes their education in the sciences, engineering, math and technical fields.

Wal-Mart

Wal-Mart gives a significant number of scholarships in each of their communities to graduating high school students. Wal-Mart Corporation has been committed to community involvement since Sam Walton first developed his business plan.

Coca-Cola

Coca-Cola is one of the largest, most familiar Fortune 500 companies on the globe. Not only does Coca-Cola award a number of scholarships to graduating high school students pursuing 4-year degrees, but the company also has established a program that is designed explicitly for students who will attend 2-year colleges-The Johnson Legacy Scholarship Program.

General Electric (GE)/LULAC Scholarship

Applicants must have a minimum of 3.25 GPA. Selection is based upon academic performance, performance in business- or engineering-related subjects, likelihood of pursuing a career in business or engineering, writing ability, extracurricular activities, and community involvement.

Best Buy

Best Buy’s @ 15 Scholarship Program is awarding $1,500 in scholarship to 1,000 students living in the United States and Puerto Rico. Students who will be entering college in the fall after graduating from high school will be eligible for this scholarship. Students should demonstrate excellent academic achievements, volunteer efforts and work experience.