Mistake #1: Not comparing college costs

Colleges all write their financial aid award letters differently. Some count student loans as self help, others may include it in your financial aid total. Comparing your awards, item to item, can give you a better picture of where you stand financially with a school. Feeling ambitious? Figure out how much student loan interest will accrue over 4 years at each school to see how your choice can affect you when you graduate.

Mistake #2: Not applying for scholarships throughout college

The biggest student loan mistake you can make is taking out more than you need to. Many students stop searching for scholarships after their freshman year, but by applying regularly, you’re more likely to win money for school and need to take out less loans over your college career.
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With millions of students putting in the effort to search for scholarships, it seems a shame not to share the findings! That’s why StudentScholarshipSearch.com asked students, just like you, to suggest their scholarship lists – and the results were fantastic! Students picked topics that were important to them, created their lists, and now they’re being shared with you!

From scholarships for southpaws to no essay scholarships, and scholarships for single parents, it’s never been easier for students to find scholarships relevant to them. To find a student scholarship list relevant to you, head on over to StudentScholarshipSearch.com and get started!

We should also mention that if you’re a student who has put a lot of time into researching scholarships, you can share your list, too. Suggest a list and help other students find scholarships – after all, why reinvent the wheel?

Finding scholarships is tough. With so many students looking for aid, many often get discouraged and stop applying. However, searching for scholarships has never been easier. Recently relaunched, the new StudentScholarshpSearch.com allows students to find scholarships quickly and easily, no registration required!

With Student Scholarship Search, you can find scholarships for all sorts of things like state scholarships, scholarships by interest or even by career. The important thing when searching for scholarships is to look for what’s unique to you. Are you a 6’5″ girl? Search for tall scholarships. Do you live in Hawaii? There are scholarships for that too. Searching for scholarships is more effective when you narrow down your criteria – it’s less overwhelming, and you can be more productive.

To make it even easier, you could always use the scholarship matcher, which identifies applicable scholarships based on 5 simple questions like your GPA or gender. Or you can check out scholarship lists created by other students with your interests.

With thousands of scholarships in one place, you can now spend less time hunting, and more time winning money to help get you through school.

Head on over to StudentScholarshipSearch.com to see what scholarships you can find!

With the summer winding down, many of you are starting to wonder if you put aside enough money for college.  You had a great summer, but you only worked 10 hours a week, and you know that you will want to spend a lot of money in college.  Fear not, there is still hope!  With a month left until you leave for college, there are still plenty of opportunities to earn money without missing out on the rest of summer.

Be an Extra in a Movie

Lights, camera, action!  If you’re looking for your 15 seconds of fame, you can make it happen…and get paid for it!  Movie sets are in constant need of people to serve as extras in their movies, so look online and sign up with a casting company.  Signing up is free, and you’ll be notified of opportunities such as these that are close to home.  Plus, if you have any unique skills, you may be eligible to be paid extra.

Join Focus Groups

Imagine getting paid $50 to talk about Facebook and Twitter for 2 hours.  Would you believe me if I said that you could?  Focus groups are constantly in need of teenagers to discuss their views on school, social media, and hobbies to figure out how to make their product more appealing to our age group.  A quick Google search will reveal focus groups close to you.  Sign up, and you will be notified of upcoming opportunities that you qualify for.  Just show up, have fun, and cash that check. (more…)

It’s 7:30 on a monday morning and your alarm clock goes off. You turn it off and roll over for 5 more minutes of sleep. When you finally roll out of bed and look at the clock, it’s 11:30 and you’ve missed your class. Not a big deal, right? As it turns out, skipping class might cost you more than you think.

According to the recent infographic from StudentScholarshipSearch.com, skipping just one class is a waste of $20 if you attend a public college, or $50 if you’re at a private school. This may seem like it’s not a big deal, but wasted money can add up fast! If you’re paying for college with loans, you’ll be paying interest on that class’s cost too!

Still not convinced you shouldn’t skip class? What if i told you that “those who wasted time in college are 3x more likely to be unemployed”? That got your attention, didn’t it?

To find other ways skipping class can hurt you, check out the True Cost of Skipping Class infographic.

Student loans can be a crucial part of paying for college, but don’t forget there are other options that should be exhausted first- like scholarships. Many students know they should apply for scholarships, but either don’t have the time or get frustrated when they don’t win. We want to help, because let’s face it, free money for college is better than high-interest money for college.

StudentScholarshipSearch.com has developed an awesome infographic to help students win money: The Top 5 Scholarship Application Mistakes. Learn about some of the most common reasons why students are unable to snag a scholarship, and what you can do to turn your luck around.

While you may not win all of the scholarships you apply for, hopefully the tips from this infographic will get you on your way! And remember, apply apply apply!

For seniors, graduation is quickly approaching! Unfortunately, so are those pesky loan repayments, yikes! Take a few seconds to vote on our most recent poll to let us (and all those soon-to-be-graduates out there) know how much debt you’ll be graduating with, and see where you fall on the scale!

View Student Loan Debt Survey Results summarizing the results (as of May, 15)

If you’re graduating with loans, make sure to look into loan consolidation to help with repayment!  Still in school?  Find a better way to pay search for scholarships or compare student loans.

So you’ve gotten your financial aid award package from your schools but you didn’t get as much federal aid as you had hoped. Now what? Well, there are some other financial options for you to consider.

Scholarships

Scholarships can be a great way to fill the gap between the aid you received and the aid you need. ScholarshipPoints.com gives away monthly $1,000 scholarships, and the best part is, it’s open to all students enrolled in college! There are none of the restrictions that most other scholarships have, if you participate, you can win! The program is pretty simple too- you earn points by completing surveys, or reading blogs, then you can enter these points into our monthly drawings! Easy as pie. PLUS, there are quarterly $10,000 drawings, so there’s really no reason no to join.
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It’s tax season again and one of the most common questions from students right now is whether or not they have to claim their financial aid (grants, loans, or scholarships) on their taxes. So to clarify, students have to claim on their IRS tax forms any money gained from services for which they received payment, investments, and self-employment income. Generally, amounts spent on education, scholarships, grants, and loans are non-taxable, though there are some exceptions. To note, most tax-free treatment of income, credits, and deductions require the student to be a degree candidate, but not all. (more…)

ScholarshipPoints.com, a free college scholarship rewards program, will draw the winner of their next $10,000 scholarship on December 15th.

ScholarshipPoints  (http://www.scholarshippoints.com), an Edvisors online education company, recently announced that its final $10,000 scholarship of 2010 will be awarded on December 15th. The December drawing will mark the fifth time this year that ScholarshipPoints has awarded a $10,000 scholarship to a single student and brings the total amount awarded to over $115,000 in 2010.

Read the entire article here…