There is more than one way to pay for college! And colleges understand that “financial need” does not necessarily mean you are living at the poverty level. Scholarships are based on your *academic records* and/or *financial need*.

1. Endowments. An endowment is when a wealthy family sets up large amounts of money to help out students at the college where they attended. Expensive schools have *lots* of endowment money to give to students. You can check the Peterson’s book in the library or online site to find out how much each school has in endowments and what percent of the student body is receiving scholarships.

http://www.petersons.com/

Side note: Peterson’s (or the Princeton Review) can also give you a heads-up as to whether this private, expensive school is really all that much better than the local state university. They have lots of interesting statistics as well as student’s comments, depending on where you look.

http://www.princetonreview.com/home.asp

2. Other scholarships. There are independent groups and individuals who give scholarships to whomever they choose. Sometimes they have very specific requirements for application, based on the field of study, ethnicity, age, etc. You can research these at the library or at the university you choose.

Scholarships

3. Free money via Pell grants and/or loan money via Perkins loans or Stafford loans. Your parents have to fill out a Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA) form, and you must maintain a certain level of credit hours and GPA to keep getting the funds. The loans must be paid back to the government after you finish school, but they only charge like 3% interest.

http://www.fafsa.ed.gov/

4. Work-study programs. Get a job on campus, or even better, get a good paying job like FedEx, UPS, etc. and go to school at the same time. MANY people do this.

Hope this helps you! Best wishes!