Breaking the Small Business Code

College Kids and Monkeys About Equal on Math

 "College Kids and Monkeys About Equal on Math" is an eye-catching title of an article posted by MSN Health today,  (PDF copy available here if it is missing from the MSN Site: LPT_PDF02142009).

Elizabeth Brannon, an assistant professor of psychology and neuroscience at Duke University is studying how human adults and infants, lemurs and monkeys think about numbers without using language. She is trying to identify which parts of the brain house "number sense" and the she is trying to determine how this math skills develop.

Among other things, she found college students and macaque have similar speed and accuracy (!) when doing a rough sort of math by summing sets of objects without actually counting them! As an engineer who speaks "math", I found it very interesting that math skills are apparently inherent to primates!

When I first saw the title I was prepared for an article on the sad state of math skills in our college students.  So while it didn't turn out to be that, it got me thinking about why students fight math when it is such a critical tool for college and life success.

I regularly have students tell me they are picking their college major based on NOT wanting anything with "math in it".  I have also lost count on the number of times one of my solid "B to B+" students ended up in a remedial math class in college - a situation which added time AND costs for getting their undergraduate degree!

I started my college planning career with college funding and scholarships, then added admissions, then majors and careers, and eventually added test prep.  But over the last 15 years it has become apparent that focusing on those 4 college-related steps with just high school juniors and seniors was not addressing the real needs of my client families.  Something was missing in their tool kits for success in college and for life!

Basic math skills are critical in the increasingly high tech economy.  Math is needed for personal financial literacy. A lot of our current economic problems can be blamed on people's inability to understand their personal cash flow. That is because virtually all the studies show our students are NOT getting what they need for math success.

I am not going to point fingers at anyone in the education "system" for failing to create math "literate" students. Blaming schools, teachers, parents, administrators, and/or the government is not the way to find solutions. Instead, I went looking for PROVEN TOOLS to make basic skills accessible and successful for more students regardless of the system.  I wanted to find something for teaching 21st century students using 21st century technology.

I am taking an engineering approach to building a SYSTEM for success in education available to anyone with internet access. I am proud to announce the launch on March 1 of a new initiative from Linda P. Taylor's Insider Secrets:  "Creating Access to Higher Scores and the Education Edge" (CAHSEE). 

CAHSEE is designed to pull together the tool kit that middle school, high school, college, and even adults need for learning success!  I want to give families access to the FUNDAMENTAL SKILLS we ALL need for a lifetime of success.  

I will soon announce the CAHSEE program for creating mastery in Math and English Language Arts (ELA).  But in the meantime, I want suggestions from readers about what other needs and especially what tools, programs, and systems you think should be included.  PLEASE send me comments, suggestions, ideas and referrals to make CAHSEE rock!

The NEW Scholarship Scam

     Just got a nice eMail from a mom who had purchased my Linda P. Taylor's Insider Secrets to Scoring Scholarships eBook and video system.  She said was SHOCKED to learn about the "dirty little secret" about internet scholarships "harvesting" data and reselling it!  She had always thought the scams cost money and didn't realize a free site could be a problem!  She had also gone to my blog posting about about hidden traps and was really concerned about her son searching for money they desperately needed for college.

     I shared with her (and want to share with blog readers) how to fight these NEW wolves in scholarship sheep's clothing!  As the market melts down, more and more families are going to the internet looking for scholarships.  And I want you to be prepared for the good, the bad and the ugly of FREE scholarship search sites!

    In the good old days, a scammer would send you a letter and promised you a list of scholarships and maybe financial aid for a small fee.  They "covered" themselves by sending you a virtually useless printed list of scholarships and maybe some free information on how to find and write letters.  Most of those wolves were pretty much run out of town by  FTC enforcement and by the proliferation of free internet search sites that made them irrelevant. 

    But the wolves didn't go away.  The word "scholarships" is just too juicy as a marketing tool to give up.  So they moved to the internet and changed their focus.

   What I call the "new wolves" are companies that offer a scholarship or may offer nothing from their pockets but are aggregating everyone else's scholarships into their website.  The applicants are asked for large amounts of data so their "search" can be more successful.  But what the students don't know is their INFORMATION IS BEING SOLD over and over again to anyone and everyone who pays for it if they don't actively opt-out.

    Like the old wolves, the new ones cover themselves legally.  They will ask you to opt-out of "third party offers".  But most ask applicants to unclick  a box that says you have read the Terms and Conditions or the Privacy Statement.  They are NOT obvious in what they are going to do with your data if the box stays clicked.  I know they will claim it is your responsibility to read these pages and I agree BUT . . .

    I DO read these as part of my research on safe sites for my clients like the College Leadership Foundation's College eCoaching Program.  Most are in 9-point font, legalese and when they reveal the truth about what they do with your information, it's 5 or six mind-numbing paragraphs down and is fuzzy-wuzzy about what you will allow them to do by not opting-out.

     So how do you know the good ones from the bad ones?  READ the Terms & Conditions and/or Privacy statements before you hit enter!  Sorry, you do need to do that to protect yourselves.

    So you can know what to do, here is an example of a GOOD one from www.CollegeSurfing.com's Privacy section.  It is in PLAIN English and clear.  I have added the color for emphasis.

"As a general practice, we do not sell your personally identifiable information to third parties or mass marketers. However, on particular pages where we ask for your personally identifiable information, we may explicitly tell you that the data we are collecting on that page will be provided to third parties, in which case those disclosures shall override anything to the contrary in this policy. We would also have the right to sell this information as part of a sale of all or substantially all of our assets.  [It's that phrase "explicity tell you" that makes them good guys in my opinion! LPT].      

In some situations, we provide your personally identifiable information to third-party service providers to enhance or expand the functionality available to you as a user of the Site, but this will only be done when you specifically ask us to by responding to a survey."

 Here is an example of one of the a quasi-wolf (in my opinion), www.Scholarships.com. 

"We will not share, sell, rent or otherwise transfer this information without the user's permission, and then only in accordance with the terms set forth in this Privacy Policy. Our website provides users the opportunity to unsubscribe (opt-out) from receiving email messages from Scholarships.com and its marketing partners or from having their information shared with our marketing partners. [you have to opt-out - LPT]"

     Is Scholarships.com actually providing scholarship searches?  Yes.  Are they a scam? No.  Are they doing anything illegal? No.  I don't really have a problem with Scholarships.com selling the names and related information.  What I resent is the fact they are not clear about how they "get paid" for offering all these information to applicants for free!  I get marketing magazines as part of my job to help clients with their marketing needs.  One of them recently featured a FULL PAGE ad that specifically pointed out to interested list buyers all the data they get from the opt-in Scholarships.com eMail list! 

    And here is the site for that I feel is the worst example of the marketing wolves: ScholarshipExperts.  Here's what it says in their Terms & Conditions in small buried print (I added color and bolding for emphasis): 

"When You submit a profile or application, ScholarshipExperts.com may access, store, and use all information included therein for any purpose. Additionally, if You provide permission to do so, ScholarshipExperts.com may sell, share, distribute, or disclose to third parties all information You provide, including scholarship providers, educational institutions and others."

    So how do you protect yourselves?  Follow some of the suggestions in my Scoring Scholarship system!  Get a new eMail address JUST for scholarship searches.  NEVER give out personal information like Social Security numbers or parent income.  And think twice about giving them your telephone numbers.  AND PLEASE READ THE TERMS & CONDITIONS and PRIVACY STATEMENTS!  And when you see the words 'may sell or share', avoid that site!

    Anyone seen their SPAM or junk mail go up after searching for scholarships online?  I would like to backtrack with you how that may have happened.  Send me a comment on this blog OR go to my website and contact me at www.LindaPTaylor.com.

Financial Aid for Foreign Students

This week's NACAC Conference in Seattle provided lots of information that may be of interest to many potential college students.  One is getting financial aid if you are a foreign student.

When asked if there is "traditional" need-based aid programs with state and federal grants and federally supported loans like Stafford and PLUS for non-U.S. Citizens -- the short answer is NO.  However, that does NOT mean a good student cannot receive college-based merit or need-based aid. 

There are six colleges that most of us in the industry knew will (1) admit international students in a need blind fashion and (2) meet their full financial need once admitted.  These schools include Harvard, Yale, MIT, Princeton, Williams, and Middlebury. At this week's NACAC  conference in Seattle attendees learned that Berea College, Colby College and Mount Holyoke also offer aid packages through the colleges to foreign students.

So there is good news is if you are a foreign student, some private colleges may offer aid packages if admitted regardless of citizenship.  It is more likely to happen at "need-blind" colleges meaning they will look at admitting you first regardless of ability to pay.  Once admitted, they will help meet your need with whatever dollars are legally available. 

If this is something you want to explore, check with the college Admissions and Financial staff to see what their policy on college-supported aid would be.  Also ask about the required financial aid paperwork.  Most of these colleges use the Financial Aid Profile in addition to the FAFSA so you will need to make sure you comply with their policies and due dates.

Unsettling Grandparent Question on 529 Plans

   Anyone who follows my blogs and my career as a college funding advisor knows that I am not a fan of 529 Plans as a way to save for college. In my opinion, tax-free growth of your funds is not a good enough reason to use 529s when you discover all the "gotcha's" and gray areas surrounding them!

      One of the big gotcha's used to be 529 plans would impact the Financial Aid of the beneficiary. This was changed  by the 2007 College Cost Reduction Act (CCRA). The Act specifically states that qualified distributions to a student from student- and parent-owned 529s would not be included as student income on the FAFSA and would not reduce financial aid from a college to the student.  However, there is a "gray" area involving grandparent-owned 529s that was brought to my attention today.

     Financial and tax professionals often recommend 529 plans to grandparents like me as a way to move taxable assets out of an estate but still be able to maintain control over the gifted money should the beneficiary grandchildren not go to college. There are generous gifting limits and the growth would be untaxed as long as the distributions were used for qualified college expenses outlined by the IRS.  But the distributions from a grandparent-owned 529 account were NOT specifically mentioned or exempted for financial aid in the CCRA! 

      Some financial aid experts now worry that distributions from a grandparent-owned 529 are student income.  That means they must be included in the FAFSA according to the rules that clearly state  ". . . money received, or paid on your behalf (e.g. bills), not reported elsewhere on this form must be reported."  Financial aid expert Mark Kantrowitz argues that distributions are exempt regardless of ownership based on the intent of all the regulations even if it grandparents are not specifically named.  But Joe Hurley, the CPA who is considered "THE" expert on 529s, feels the situation is ambiguous. 

       So what do you do?

  There may ways to avoid financial aid impacts by changing ownership to the student or parent. HOWEVER, you MUST work with a VERY experienced college financial and/or tax planner famiiar with 529 rules. The process for gifting and changing owners between generations for 529s can be very confusing and complex.

      Grandparent-owned 529s are now firmly in the gray area and that makes me uncomfortable recommending them.  Students applying for federal financial aid face potential legal and tax consequences if they receive disributions from a grandparent-owned 529!  If a student does not include distributions on the FAFSA and it is later found they should have been counted, there could be taxes and the requirement that aid be refunded!  If a student does include the distribution and it is later found to be exempt,  they will have potentially lost financial aid including grants and scholarships for no reason!

      If you are a grandparent with a 529 Plans, meet with the advisor who sold them to you and get a written opinion on their impact on financial aid including IRS and Department of Education citations. If you do not yet have a 529 plan, discuss other tax-advantaged ways to save for college such as trusts and insurance products like cash value life insurance and annuities.

Warning about HIDDEN Scholarship Traps

WARNING, what you are about to read is what I call the second "dirty little secret" about scholarships (the first dirty little secret is Resourcing).   What I am talking about is the sale of  the information you provide for a scholarship application or search!

With fewer and fewer exceptions, almost ALL the scholarships on the web are simply fronts for marketing and list-building companies.  Once you finish this posting you may never want to apply for an on-line scholarship again!

I spend most Sundays watching auto racing while surfing the web for tidbits and to find "safe" websites for my clients like the College Leadership Foundation's College eCoaching Program.  Well, I just found another one of those HIDDEN relationships between a marketing company and a scholarship that make me so angry! 

I don't mind a company using a scholarships as a marketing tool as long as it is absolutely clear ON THE SAME WEB PAGE as the scholarship offer that they will be sending you information from their sponsors and partners.  A "good guy" example is Financial Aid Podcast with Chris Penn which makes no secret that its $10,000 scholarship is directly related StudentLoan Network.

What I call the "bad guy"  sites are ones where the only thing you see is information about  scholarships and maybe some window dressing about financial aid.  Their relationship with marketing and list companies is buried in 7 point font on page 15 of micro-mini pages under Terms & Conditions or Privacy which is usually at the bottom of the page, again in micro print but in such a light color that it is almost invisible!  Oh they cover themselves legally by asking you to opt-out by unchecking an already completed box.  But unchecking the box make it look like you might miss out on another scholarship or special offer!

These people attract MILLIONS of students by offering one scholarship worth as little as $500 all the way up to $10,000. Your email and any other information you include to "qualify" for the scholarship is then used, sold and re-sold for years.

What is insidious about these marketing scholarships is they get "filtered" and passed along in ways that make them seem safe.  Aggregators like FastWeb are full of  marketing scholarships like BrickFish.  These not-so-nice sites also get passed along by high school counselors and groups like NACAC who are just trying to help students.  But others are affiliates who get paid to send you to these scholarship sites! Now social media is passing them along and it's pissing me off!

Today I found a GREAT example of how families are being duped through SOCIAL MEDIA!!  It started with a Twitter message I got that referred me to the blog "College Finance 101".  Inside the site was a blog entitled FREE COLLEGE MONEY.  Inside the blog was a link to ScholarshipExperts dot com site.  What made me mad was this was an affiliate tag so the blogger is either being paid per click or per applicant.  From there, I was asked to fill in my basic information on the squeeze ScholarshipExperts front page. 

So what's so bad about that process I just described? Several things.  First, I now don't know whether or not I can trust the content of College Finance 101.  There may be some fabulous information in that blog but it is now tainted because I have to worry what else is a hidden front for affiliate marketing.  I have no problem with ads or banners or stated affiliate relationships.  I do have a problem with a link that looks like an endorsement without revealing the relationship is financial!

Finally, here is what ScholarshipExperts says in its Terms & Conditions (I added color and bolding for emphasis): 

When You submit a profile or application, ScholarshipExperts.com may access, store, and use all information included therein for any purpose. Additionally, if You provide permission to do so, ScholarshipExperts.com may sell, share, distribute, or disclose to third parties all information You provide, including scholarship providers, educational institutions and others.

This is why I wrote my Insider Secrets to Scoring Scholarships.  It shows ALL the good, the bad and this ugly kind of stuff that everyone else leaves out!  I hate scholarship hyprocrisy.  I like my data straight and to the point.   If you are an affiliate, carry the ad or banner, don't bury it in your blog.  If you sell the information, say so.  If there is going to be someone calling you about the offer, say so.

To learn more about my crusade against scholarship abuses, visit www.LindaPTaylor.com

Website Makes Getting College Information Easy! (But Where's the COA?)

         I just finished reviewing the UCAN  website hosted by the National Association of Independent Colleges and Universities (NAICU).   Per their press materials and website  (I have bolded phrases for emphasis): 

       "More than ever, as tuition continues to grow, families are focused on getting the best value for their dollar. The first step is finding the right information to make the right college choice. To this meet this challenge, the National Association of Independent Colleges and Universities (NAICU) has developed U-CAN (the University and College Accountability Network), a free, consumer-informed college information Web site.  For the first time, institutions of higher education have come together to develop and deliver key college information directly to consumers. With U-CAN, we will take an important step toward better educating consumers, and fostering student satisfaction and success." 

       This is one of the EASIEST sites I have ever seen for getting key information! The summary pages are visually appealing and simple to use.  It is easy to see how many students come from where, how many graduate, how many return after the freshman year, etc.  This is the key information with the option to click through to details like the surrounding area resources!

But I have not yet gone through each listing to see how each college lists the Total Cost of Attendance (COA).  So far, almost each one I looked at played "fair" . . . . BUT some are still are playing "hide the COA"!!

       Sadly, one of my local colleges --  California Lutheran College (Cal Lu) -- did not list the COA.  It listed only percent of freshman receiving aid.   I hope this is an oversight and NOT a deliberate attempt to hide their COA from prospective families!

Again, I applaud NAIC for a GREAT website.  But I continue to CHASTISE and RANT at those colleges who do NOT simply state their COA clearly and simply.  To hide the COA, omit it, only provide tuition, or to provide after-aid averages is DECEPTIVE and beneath the dignity of an institution of higher learning! 

Please let me know what you think about this issue of hidden COAs.

RESOURCING - The Ugly Scholarship Truth NO ONE TELLS!

ORIGINAL DATE: 08/30/2008 11:58:19 AM

     I just got a Tweet from someone who works at a student loan company that also operates a "scholarship" site (Twitter me at LindaPTaylor).  Good news is this company is open about the connection between the two sites! Sadly, most sites are nothing but fronts for lenders or marketing companies and they don't tell the searchers who register what will happen to their registration information. (Feel free to go to www.LindaPTaylor.com and send me an eMail through my "Contact Me" page and I'll share who these good and bad guys are!)

     Bad news is the information provided by even the good guy site is NOT complete!  It has good content but neglects to share the dirty little secret of "resourcing". This is also known as "Outside Scholarship Policy" at most colleges.

The site talks about focusing on finding and applying for at least 1 scholarship a week (and recommends 1 per day - ouch). They also recommend several YouTube videos that perpetuate the tall tale that "millions" in scholarships go unclaimed every year.  They demonstrate the excitement of a student "finding" a perfect scholarship to apply for (but not winning!). But they DON'T tell you anything about this student and his potential to be resourced right out of that money at the colleges on his list!

     The key to this is to understand you are not supposed to receive more money than you "need" for college.  Most college-bound families know the equation COA - EFC = need which determines how much aid a student needs for a college.  The REAL equation is COA - EFC - OUTSIDE RESOURCES = aid!

     So after you know that your scholarships will be absorbed by this equation, the next question is what part of the aid package the college will apply the scholarship to! UPenn promises it applies to loans and work-study first.  Others, apply it first to federal and state grants. But the nasty ones apply it to their free money.

     I met with a family last night who will be needy at every school on their senior son's list. I showed them the probable structure of financial aid at these schools including loans and free money but noted that regardless of the school their son finally chooses, they will end up paying at least their EFC of $14,000. So the talk immediately turned to finding scholarships for that $14,000.  I then explained the practice of resourcing at the schools.

     I showed the family 2008-2009 financial aid offers I had from several schools including Stanford, Columbia and Northwestern that clearly show the outside scholarships were "absorbed" or resourced by these colleges leaving the family's EFC totally intact. So for needy students at most colleges, outside scholarships don't do ANYTHING to help pay the family's direct costs!

     I explained that most scholarships are co-addressed and the colleges have policies to absorb or resource all such scholarships.  So in the case of a needy family, finding outside scholarships is usually a waste of time!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!  Unless you are receiving no free money at all from a college, scholarships are not the salvation most families have been led to believe.

      When I think of all the time wasted by hard-working families trying to find scholarships, registering at sites that sell their information to lenders or other marketers, and knowing what happens to them emotionally when they have the money snatched out of their hands --- I could scream!

       The RIGHT way to pay for college is to learn to play the game THE RIGHT WAY!  Learn to fnd scholarships the SMART way.  Don't buy into these myths and half-truths.  Find a source you can trust like the College Leadership Foundation.    

       I feel so strongly about this whole SCHOLARSHIP RESOURCING issue that I am GIVING AWAY by complete Insider Secrets to finding scholarships (worth $149) when a family joins the nonprofit Foundation's ecoaching program! You get everything I have including the eBook, video of the 1-hour workshop, PowerPoints, and bonus materials.  I make NOTHING from the sale because I have had it with meeting with families who had thousands of scholarship dollars snatched from their pockets by resourcing!

   

If you have been "RESOURCED", PLEASE let me know! I want to share real life stories with other scholarship seekers.

Which Survey Category Will You Fall Into?

ORIGINAL DATE: 08/25/2008 09:54:01 PM

SallieMae recently published a very extensive survey done for them by Gallup on how the 2007 Freshman Class paid for college.  The information is both encouraging and discouraging at the same time! 

First, the good news is that nearly 90% of low income families (less than $50K in earnings) filed the FAFSA. And 97% at the lowest income levels filed!  This means that all the outreach to lower income families is paying off!  This means the maximum in aid should have been available to the most needy families.

Sadly, the numbers filing the FAFSA falls off as income rises. At over $150k, the number filing the FAFSA is about 40%.  The survey also shows that the higher the income the more expensive the college they attend.  And the more expensive the college, the more likely you are to qualify for financial aid at higher incomes!  This past year Elite Ivies like Harvard, Yale and Dartmouth offered free tuition to families earning up to $150,000!  So 60% of these higher income families left money on the table! And many of these higher earners are business owners who have many options for reducing the cost of college but don't take advantage of them - just like they don't take advantage of the FAFSA!

The next thing that grabbed my attention was that 61% of parents BEGAN discussing how to pay for college when their student started high school.  Most began thinking about college funding in the junior year or after the first admissions test like the PSAT!  This explains the survey results that most families use loans and cash flow to pay for college and not savings. 

The survey has lots of details that will help me and organizations like the College Leadership Foundation better serve our college-bound families.  One thing that became clear was college is really a parent CASH FLOW and lifestyle problem.

So where do you fall?  If you reading this blog you are probably aware of the upcoming costs of college.
So what grade level is your student?  Are you planning to file the FAFSA?  Do you have a plan in place to handle the impact of college on your debt and your lifestyle?  Do you know whose input on college planning you can trust?

May I suggest you visit the nonprofit College Leadership Foundation's website and sign-up for their free eNews that provides neutral and unbiased information for college planning.  www.CLFeCoach.org/eNews.

Scholarships that Don't Help

ORIGINAL DATE: 08/22/2008 10:49:05 AM

I recently wrote an article on Scholarship resourcing for the College Leadership Foundation's eNews (sent at no cost, so go to www.CLFeCoach.org/eNews to subscribe now).  What was cool was an eNews subscriber sent me an eMail through my website www.LindaPTaylor.com to let me know that resourcing was not always a sure thing which I had inferred in the article.

Here are 3 quick things to set up the story.  First, most scholarships are "co-addressed" which means they are awarded to the student but sent direct to the college on behalf of the winner.  Next, "resourcing" is when a college applies the scholarship money to the financial aid being given to the student - both free money and loans. Lastly, colleges have complete freedom to apply the scholarship any way they wish to aid and expenses as well as let you "keep" the money.

Apparently the subscriber's son had received several co-addressed scholarships.  The college he had selected did NOT resource the scholarships and had actually allowed him to add the scholarships to the aid he was receiving.  This meant the scholarships actually reduced the costs not being met by the college's aid package! This was UNUSUAL but became very understandable when you looked at the scholarship totals, the student and the college.

First, the total amount of the scholarships was modest and absorbing them would not really have changed the total free money he was getting from the college.  So there was not much incentive to absorb the money. Second, this student was highly desirable and allowing him to "keep" his scholarships was a good idea both tactically and politically to make their college more "attractive".  But the most important thing was this college is ranked in the fourth tier by US News & World Report.  That means they are not considered a popular or well-known college.  By not resourcing the scholarships they stood "out" from the other colleges that did both!

So does this change my position that most scholarship searches are a waste of time financially?  No, not really. As I say in my "77 Secrets to Winning Scholarships" system, you should search for scholarships SMART! Decide whether or not the money you would get is worth the effort it will take for the schools on your list. You need to know whether or not the colleges on your list will resource your scholarships based on their  policy posted in their catalog.  You need to know what your family's Expected Family Contribution (EFC) will be at the target colleges on your list so you can estimate the amount of free money you'll get. And you need to know whether or not the work to get them is worth the money and the flood of marketing materials you will get when you register on-line for most scholarships.

A REMINDER -  If you join the College Leadership Foundation's College eCoaching program which provides you with the best in neutral and unbiased college planning information, you get my ENTIRE COLLEGE SCHOLARSHIP SYSTEM as a free bonus!  That's everything - the book, the video of my 1-hour scholarship workshop, workshop PowerPoints, and lots of bonus items.  To learn more, go to www.CLFeCoach.org.

Scholarships As Marketing Tool

ORIGINAL DATE: 05/12/2008 06:41:43 AM

Scholarships.  The magic marketing word.  If you want lots of people to attend your seminar, read your article or now days - register at your website -- offer a scholarship. I have always been lukewarm about scholarships because I did the math and if every college student found the maximum available, it calculated out to about $900 per student.  Assuming that 10% found everything, it equated to an average of about $9,000.  And most of the money is ONLY for the first year.  With the cost of college being $18,000 to $50,000 per YEAR, that's not much of a dent. Per the scholarship aggregation site FastWeb, they have scholarships worth over $3 billion dollars.  Again the math is not so good.   If you dig around, you'll find that there are 38 million registered users of the site!  If every registrant found every dollar, you get $86 per registrant!  Assume 10% get everything and it jumps to $857 (whooppee)!  Not what I call good odds to find big bucks. Can scholarships help relieve the pressure on paying for college?  ABSOLUTELY!  But NOT to the extent people think. It is ONE part of the process.   So to maximize your odds and your total, go after them in a smart way. Sadly, the easy way is NOT the smart way.  Registering at a scholarship aggregation site like FastWeb is easy - too easy.  Anyone can register and the site does all the work  matching key words.  Sadly, this has devalued scholarships! Scholarships before the era of the Internet were different and seemed to have more meaning.   It took time and effort to dig out these scholarships.  It made them more impressive.

Today scholarships at sites like FastWeb are mostly marketing tools!  You have to give them tons of personal information which is then used for marketing and resale unless you opt-out.  And out of fear of missing a new scholarship, most don't opt-out!  for example, to get this year's CocaCola-Chuckee Cheese scholarship, you were asked to register for their "Club".  The opt-out was buried in the process but most students skipped it.  The $25,000 SINGLE scholarship offer generated 1.6 million new club members.  That put the odds of winning at 1 in 1.6 million!  I think there are better odds in MegaBucks lotto! And this is also an example of what I meant as "less impressive".  The "Target Community Service" award sounds much better than "Chuckee Cheese" on a resume and college application. The most prolific scholarship provider on FastWeb and other aggregation sites is "BrickFish" which is small $500 scholarships for endorsing consumer products for which Brickfish is paid a marketing/advertising fee! The total money available for scholarships always sounds impressive until you realize how many people you are competing against!  So focus on ALL the ways to find money - not just the easy way.  That's why I wrote my book and recorded my video on scholarships.  I want people to know all the ways and places to find the money they need.  There are good scholarships available but it takes more effort and a different approach than most people think. You can get my book and video AND a bonus athletic book all delivered "green" via the Internet by clicking on the products page of this site.  It's normally $29.95 and I guarantee results.  BUT if you join the College Leadership Foundation's College eCoaching Club for $14.95, I am giving their new members the entire system for FREE!  That's how much I believe in the eCoaching Club!  Go to www.CollegeLeadershipFoundation.org/InsiderSecrets to join now AND keep my system for free! Please feel free to ask questions in my contact me page or in comments to this blog. I know people are always looking for the latest information on college scholarships and college planning. I am glad to help where I can! -----