Scholarship adviser offers students financial advice
Joesph Starkloff
ASU recently approved to raise mandatory fees and tuition by nearly 19 percent. College Board recently published a report that exhibited tuition hikes have become a national trend. The group is a non-profit organization that is focused on increasing college student success.
The report stated that the average cost of tuition in the U.S. for public two-year colleges has risen 7.3 percent since 2008, and 6.5 percent for resident tuition at four-year public colleges.
The Maricopa Community College governing board agreed during the March 23 meeting not to raise tuition for the 2010 fiscal year. However, the expected drop in state funding during the next few years increases the likelihood of a potential raise in tuition.
Karla Gonzalez, scholarship coordinator and financial aid technician at MCC, said the best way to raise money for higher education was preparation.
“We always recommend that students prepare . financially for their classes in advance. Trying to find out if they’re going to be able to work and how many hours they’re going to be working, to estimate what kind of budget they’re going to have for the following year,” Gonzalez said.
The next step after creating a budget was finding out what types of grants, scholarships and loans were available. Gonzalez said that meant filling out a Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA).
This form is accessible online and required the student’s to give information on their prior year’s income.
She stated that filling out a FAFSA helped students determine what loans, grants and scholarships they qualify for.
Several scholarships for students can be discovered online. Gonzalez stated that Fastweb.com had several scholarships listed for students, as well as MCC’s own financial aid website.
She also said there were several actions students could take to increase their chances for success in receiving scholarships.
“Start early, search often, get familiar with the scholarship requirements, be aware of deadlines . and stay focused,” Gonzalez said.
One outlook that would help a student stay focused is keeping in mind how much a scholarship payout is per hour of work.
“If you spend 10 hours finding and applying for a scholarship, and you receive a $500 reward, you just made $50 an hour,” Gonzalez said.
Some scholarships required the student to write an essay in order to apply. Gonzalez stated that essays that make the student stand out have a much higher success rate.
“The donors are not going to meet you and they probably don’t know who you are . so the only chance to prove who you are is by what you write. You want to make sure you’re original and you stand out in your essay,” Gonzalez said.
To get the desired results, she recommended not providing stereotypical answers.
“A common topic is ‘tell me who is your role model and why.’ You want to stay away from usual answers like my mom or my dad. Show that there is a little bit of research into it, and that you put a little bit of time into it,” Gonzalez said.
She also warned of scams that can be found online, such as “FASFA.com” (notice misspelled name).
“Avoid any scholarship scams. You shouldn’t have to pay for a scholarship’s application . so anytime they ask you to pay, I encourage students to avoid that,” Gonzalez said.
The government FAFSA form can be found at http://www.fafsa.ed.gov. For MCC’s financial aid website, visit http://www.mesacc.edu/students/scholarships.
