Undergraduate Scholarships
Saving money for children’s college education is one of the hardest parenthood tasks. Higher education costs have been steadily rising at 5% annually or even more, far surpassing the rate of inflation. Aside from tuition costs, parents also have to worry about other related costs and take them carefully into consideration. To paint a clearer picture of this issue and really understand the financial challenges a parent has to go through in order to provide his child with the proper education a rough estimate is due.
At the rate tuition fees have been rising until now, the educational bill for a child born in the last five years will be somewhere around $100,000 in total expenses for four years at an average public college and almost triple that amount at a public university. To be able to come up with such large amounts of money parents need to do some careful financial planning, and most importantly, to be very disciplined when saving money. Actually, financial advisors suggest that parents should start saving money for their child’s college education, as soon as he is born.
To help struggling parents and offer tax-free incentives, state governments have created state-managed savings accounts, titled 529 savings plans so that parents can save money for higher education. The tax-free 529 College Savings plans have become popular among parents as they do offer important advantages over other saving methods. For example, a $3,000 yearly contribution to a growth-oriented plan, beginning at birth should be enough to pay for a child’s public education, and a $7,500 contribution for private education.
However, even with clearly advantageous ways to save money at hand, most parents still fail in providing their offspring with funds for academic tuition. As a solution to help students come up with financial means themselves, loans have been offered by private banking institutions. Unfortunately, this kind of financial aid constrains students to repay a certain amount of dollars or face the legal consequences.
Federal Grants
There are many types of grants for undergraduate available for students seeking financial aid, depending on various criteria. For example, students who are engaged in extracurricular activities and excel at them can be awarded merit-based scholarships. This kind of free tuition money is also available for undergraduates with exceptional academic results or students who possess exceptional athletic or artistic abilities.
Other methods to help youth higher education is the student-specific ones that are aimed at high school seniors who come from a certain minority, follow a particular religion or struggled with health problems in the past.
On the other hand, the government supports whoever chooses to pursue a career in a field where there is a high need for people with the proper skills and training. For example, this can include education or nursing.
Another type of financial aid is the Undergraduate Scholarships that have a specific bond requirement. Graduates that benefited from this type of grant are required to work for a particular organization for a set amount of time or be obligated to pay back the free funds they used to pay for their higher education. Others, like the people that benefited from nursing or educational scholarships may need to start their career in remote areas where there is a high demand for individuals with their training. Other grants for undergraduate are ones sponsored by the U.S.A. uniformed forces.
Last but not least are the scholarships that are granted based on the financial needs of students. Undergraduates coming from a poor background that wouldn’t normally afford the high costs of proper education can benefit from this kind of scholarships.
The most common but also one of the most important and easily available ways for students to receive free tuition funds is the Pell Grant. This method is especially good because the money does not have to be paid back, which would be the case if students would seek financial aid provided by the Stafford and Perkins federal loans.
To receive the Pell Grant, high school graduates need to go through the simple process of filling out the FAFSA (Free Application for Federal Student Aid) form which can be done online or at college offices.
After this first step is completed, all the information given through the FAFSA form will be interpreted, and it will result in coming up with the amount of free tuition money that will be granted to those in need. To be able to benefit from the Pell Grant, the applicants need to prove that they have a low income or come from a poor background. Grants for undergraduate can reach four thousand dollars for full time education and half for part time. It is important to note that the Pell Grant can be received each year, but students need to go through the process of renewing it.
The reasons given above making the Pell Grant the cornerstone of any efficacious education, especially for students with low financial possibilities.
Students who have already benefited from the Pell Grant can take advantage of other opportunities to receive free college money made available by the U.S. Department of Education.
The Smart Grant
One of these is the National Science and Math Access to Retain Talent also known as the SMART Grant. This option of receiving financial aid is aimed only at undergraduates going through their last two years of studies and are interested only, in particular, fields of expertise. The main purpose of the SMART grant was to ensure the future of the United States’ science and technology fields. For the undergraduate to be an eligible SMART grant candidate, he must have U.S. citizenship, be a recipient of the Pell Grant and also be in his last two years of studies while keeping a minimum 3.0 GPA.
The application process for grants for undergraduate is done through the FAFSA form, and the eligible majors range from Math and Science to Liberal Arts and important foreign language studies.
Another auxiliary grant of the same type was the Academic Competitiveness Grant also known as the ACG aimed at students in their first two years of college and with a dire financial need. Sadly, this method of getting free tuition is no longer available.
