I gave a presentation on Shrinking the Cost of College last night on CollegeWeek Live.
I talked for about 30 minutes from my office and then I answered questions from the audience.
Here are some of the topics that I covered:
- Where you can find the greatest source of college grants.
- How you can improve your chances of getting college scholarships.
- How you can tell before you apply whether a school will be generous.
- Can you negotiate after receiving a financial aid package?
It’s not too late to see the free presentation through CollegeWeek Live’s on-demand feature. You will have to register, but it’s free. It should take you 30 seconds to do that. After registering, click on Events and you’ll see yesterday’s event — CollegeWeek Live PAYING FOR COLLEGE – that included other speakers as well.
Hope everyone has a wonderful weekend. Both of my children will be heading back to college this weekend so the house will be quieter but cleaner.
Lynn O’Shaughnessy is the author of The College Solution, an Amazon bestseller and a workbook, Shrinking the Cost of College: 152 Ways to Cut the Cost of a Bachelor’s Degree. Follow her on Twitter.
I just wanted to say what a nice blog you have here. I have a blog for college students at http://gotocollege.us and I ought to talk to you about putting your banner on there for your book.
Hi Lynn,
I have a couple of comments that may interest you. My son applied to Hamilton College (as well as eight others) and I noticed that they have a policy of applying outside scholarships to work-study and loans, rather than deduct it immediately from the grant money. I think this is awesome and hopefully will encourage other students to take the time to apply for scholarships. Do you know other colleges that have this policy?
Also, can you gift your college student money yearly to help pay for their tuition? Is this a plus for parent and student?
Thanks,
Patricia
Hi Patricia,
Thanks for the info on Hamilton College’s policy. Obviously it’s better when a school reduces loans in a financial aid package when a child receives an outside private scholarship. I think the only way to know what a school’s policy is on how it handles private scholarships is to ask each one.
As for the gifting idea, I’m not sure how to respond. I’m not sure why the parent would have to gift money to the child to pay for college when they could just pay it themselves. Student assets are assessed much heavier than parent assets. Maybe I’m just missing something.
Lynn O’Shaughnessy