This entry was posted on Tuesday, March 2nd, 2010 at 1:42 am and is filed under Win a Scholarship Grant. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
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March 2, 2010
I’m currently in my last year of college and would really like to find some scholarships for college, but my problem is that I’m in the percentage of people who just don’t get recognized. What I mean by that is, I’m 21, female, white, and come from a middle class home. This isn’t a racist thing at all, but it is so hard finding money for school because I’m not a minority or from a specifically hard background. My dad works for the auto industry and I guess my family is considered middle to lower class these days because of how he is barely holding on to his job. When I get my fafsa and stuff done the numbers come out to make my parents look like they have money, but that is only because they have had to take money out of my dad’s retirement just to live on. I’ve been trying to get any money for school since high school, but so far have only gotten 1 scholarship (and it was one that everyone got). I’ve applied to so many scholarships, but I’m just not unique enough to get them. I graduated with a 3.8 in high school and currently have a 3.4 in college, but my college is a small private school with no real programs to work with to raise my appeal for scholarships. In order to support myself I have a part time job that takes up all my free time, so I’m not able to expand my volunteering experience. My school only offers one scholarship a year and it is very very hard to get. The school has given me grants, but they are barely anything and even when my family explained our financial hardships they still didn’t raise it. I just don’t know where to find money these days. I have tried fastweb.com and other scholarship sites, tried getting random grants, tried talking to the financial aid dept at school, but it’s so hard. So how can a young, white, female, who is not the first in her family to go to college, from a middle class family, with an avg gpa, and not much time to volunteer…supposed to find money to pay for college?
I live on my own (I live on the west coast and my parents are in the midwest). My dad doesn’t work for a big company…there are like 3 employees and the owner sometimes doesn’t even let them cash their checks for a week, because he doesn’t have the money…so I doubt there is any money in that for my school. I don’t even work enough hours at my job to get health insurance (which thankfully I have through my school), but my job is also for a non-profit type benefit (ironically the money goes to help financial aid for students in a network of private elementary and high schools). I’ve been at my college 3 years already and have a bunch of student loan debt already so I really want to finish and get my degree here.
oh yeah….my parents still claim me as a dependent (many of the loans are in their name, so my mom believes they have the right to claim me. And I know they need the tax break more than me).
With that high of a GPA you could have gotten a transfer scholarship and gone to a bigger school but you do have quite the dilemma. You can ask your dad to look into any scholarships that his job offers to the children of workers or you can look into getting a job that offers tuition reimbursement. That is where as long as you are in good standing with the company (work on time, no complaints) your job will refund you on tuition and fees.
Good Luck.
…..Given the type of work you do I would serously talk to someone at my job to see if they know of anything that can help you. You cannot file independant if you are really a dependant (that could come back on you). I would say to find a new job that could offer the tuition reimbursment (unless you plan to keep your job after graduation) or you can try to locate some scholarships that are given for your degree. In my state there are grants that are offered to students with high GPA’s you might want to go to see a financial aid adviser to see if there is anything out there that you qualify for that you have not been applying for.
read comments (6)
March 2nd, 2010 at 7:09 am
With that high of a GPA you could have gotten a transfer scholarship and gone to a bigger school but you do have quite the dilemma. You can ask your dad to look into any scholarships that his job offers to the children of workers or you can look into getting a job that offers tuition reimbursement. That is where as long as you are in good standing with the company (work on time, no complaints) your job will refund you on tuition and fees.
Good Luck.
…..Given the type of work you do I would serously talk to someone at my job to see if they know of anything that can help you. You cannot file independant if you are really a dependant (that could come back on you). I would say to find a new job that could offer the tuition reimbursment (unless you plan to keep your job after graduation) or you can try to locate some scholarships that are given for your degree. In my state there are grants that are offered to students with high GPA’s you might want to go to see a financial aid adviser to see if there is anything out there that you qualify for that you have not been applying for.
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March 2nd, 2010 at 7:38 am
Some of the most accurate information will on the site of the college. Begin there first to get started.
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March 2nd, 2010 at 8:21 am
Wow, you took the words right out of my mouth.
I am in the exact same boat. Although, I do not have a GPA as high as yours and I’m only a sophomore in college.
But it is very hard. The government is so WRONG when it comes to this stuff. It ISN’T FAIR. It just ISN’T. I don’t know what to do either…besides dig myself into debt with student loans. I guess we need to write LETTER AFTER LETTER to our congressmen to explain our disgust to this unfair system. I don’t know what else to do?! :-/
Do you live at home with your parents? Or live on your own? I live on my own, and support myself with a part time job and having a bunch of roommates, (which can be absolute hell) and STILL my school says that I can afford tuition, books, room, board, meals, transportation, everything on my own!
Basically, THE SYSTEM MAKES IT VERY HARD for WHITE STUDENTS who do not have DEPENDENTS ie: KIDS. The system is trying to hold us down it seems to me….I gross just barely above poverty level, and I’m still ineligible.
Anyway, I know I wasn’t much help… more of a rant. But good luck in your search.
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March 2nd, 2010 at 8:33 am
Hey there!
It really has nothing to do with race. I’m a minority, in the middle class, and did not want to attend a college where my race was the majority. I love all people and wanted my college to be diverse. So you can imagine what a hard time I had finding scholarships. I ended up receiving a full ride scholarship at my local community college, which was diverse enough for me. I also received a $1000 scholarship. This was all based on financial need. The thing is, I really didn’t show financial need. You can qualify for many scholarships. It just depends on what words you choose to explain your situation.
There should be plenty of scholarships out there for college students. They don’t exactly have to be from your college you attend. Try Petersons.com. It may be hard, but that’s what you got to do. When in high school, I applied for over 45 scholarships. I received the two mentioned above. Figure it out.
Also, I know you are a college student. This will be my first year of college, but please visit scholarshipjunkies.com. It’s a great website that informs you of scholarship information and those who have won scholarships that can help you.
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March 2nd, 2010 at 9:14 am
File As Independent on the FAFSA.
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March 2nd, 2010 at 9:23 am
This is the typical fate of those choosing to attend a private school.
Your best chances of winning scholarships will be those directly offered from your school. If your school only offers limited amounts (this is the fate of most private schools given the state of the economy) and you or your folks don’t have the resources to pay then the school is not a very good fit…. not helpful information, I’m sure.
You chose to attend and this school and as a result will have to live with your and your parents borrowing choices. When you have kids and they start going on about "small class sizes" and "personalized instruction and caring professors" advise your kids go to at state college instead.
Hopefully someone will be able to learn from this.. its too late for you, but not for your kids. Employers don’t pay you more money in salary for attending a private school or a school you had to borrow astronomical amounts of money to attend.
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