College Scholarship Money

[RobJ]

FAFSA is the basis for most fin aid. Fill it out by or before the preferred deadline of the school your child will attend.

That's what we found out to. BTW I need to do the one for this year. We got some small Student loans to help out. When my kids were little we entered the Texas Tomorrow Fund. So popular the idiots closed the fund. My son is a freshman and so far it is working fine. the students loans are cheap money and low interest, and are not due until after he finishes...so why not. We found scholarship money almost not worth the trouble. But someone could make a living helping kids with finding this money, it's out there, hard to apply, deadlines, restictions, etc. In Texas being in the top 10 is a big deal. In a 750 student class he scored a 1350 sat and was in the top 12 percent. He got into Texas A&M the old fashion way, hard work...took algebra in the 7th grade. AP Calc and statistics math, computer design classes (Learned Autocad/Inventor in high school) and and is working toward an Aerospace Engineer degree. His roommate and suite mates are all top 10 (I think about 40% of freshman Aggies are top 10). Roommate went from 15 hours to 3. Suitemates got out of engineering, one dropped out I think. My son got a scholarship from Baylor (still to expensive) and a real good one from U of H. UH was the backup plan in case he stayed home the first year. Seeing his major AM was a good choice. No Aggies or Longhorns in our family past so no bias.

Down here there are about 48,000 aggies and about 55,000 Longhorns. Texas Tech is up near 40,000 now I think. Huge schools and a lot of kids going.

As far as the 5 years...they told un it would probaby be 5 years...mostly because in engineering, some of the kids work in the industry at times. But Aero is one of the few that the courses are available each semister. I think there are some engineering classes you can only take it in the fall.

BTW he did well in the fall, in spite of Halo3 and XBox 360 Rock Band!!

PS a tip if your kids are middle/high school. Teach them how to STUDY!! My son has several top 10 friends not making it in college. They breezed through high school without opening a book. In college they have to study...at least in the engineering classes. My son said some things he heard about college are false...but for each hour of class, there is 2-3 hours of study...that part is true.

 

[garyfisher123]

It's also a function of when classes you need to complete your degree are offered, not to mention this change to 5 years was assuming a full class schedule. No offense, but attributing it to people not working hard enough is condemning people without proof.

Ok, so maybe my statement was a little harsh. But trust me, I was there for 4 years and saw MANY students screwing around with their time ( and I am sure that you witnessed the same ). I know that there are many exceptions to this, and I apologize if I offended anyone by what I said. I guess it upsets me a little to see someones expectations to be set low from the start.

 

[garyfisher123]

As for graduating in 5 years. We were told there are many reasons. The top reason is that the school could NOT accommodate the students schedule due to demand and size of class. In order to graduate with the required hours you need that 5th year to finish. I see this as wrong! If that's the problem then maybe the school should reduce the amount of admissions. I know there are other reasons but this was one that was told to us at college visits. The student giving us the tour usually told this to us. Needless to say, this is another factor in our decision.

I agree with you 100% on this. If the required hours are not available to the students, then it is the school's problem, not the kids.

 

[RobJ]

As for graduating in 5 years. We were told there are many reasons. The top reason is that the school could NOT accommodate the students schedule due to demand and size of class. In order to graduate with the required hours you need that 5th year to finish. I see this as wrong! If that's the problem then maybe the school should reduce the amount of admissions. I know there are other reasons but this was one that was told to us at college visits. The student giving us the tour usually told this to us. Needless to say, this is another factor in our decision.

We were told this to. Actually when we were up there to register it was one of the most stressfull days in my life. The department(and the Aero department was VERY helpful) gives you a 4 year class schedule to grad. Then they say to spend time at night (the night before registration), to come up with several different class plans. Different times, etc. Now at TAMU freshmen can enroll in class clusters. 1 cluster has the math, science, english, and one other in it. There are clusters in the morning, evening, midday, afternoon, etc. So when we go to do our 3 different schedules at night...classes full, no room!! WTH?? They don't open more spots until registration starts at 1:30pm!!!!!! In the end they took the aero kids in the aero lab to register..no parents allowed. My son called at 1:33pm and said he was done. No problem. I said, STAY!! double, triple check, look busy. Some parents we were talking to started to freak...they haven't gotten a call!! In the end the calls came in minutes later and everyone got what they wanted. One gal even changed it 3 times later that day.

Now for the spring semester, my son got up at 5:00am to register. You register in an order, seniors and athletics first, then down the line on the following days. 3 days later his math teacher asked the class of about 400 who had their schedule done...my son and one other kid!! My sons roommate who went from 15 to 3 hours (q-drops) had to wait about a week after my son...because of the low hours. In the end they got what they wanted. And he did say there were cases where they opened up more spots.

So in the end if you are the last one to register, yes you might not get the class or most likely the schedule you want. The night classes seem to be the last to fill up.

Yeah it was stressful for mom and dad!!! Good Luck!

 

[rox]

In the end they took the aero kids in the aero lab to register..no parents allowed.

Rob, that is the best way. That is what happned with our daughter at freshman orientation, all the kids went out, the parents stayed in the auditorium for a lecture and they kids went and signed up for classes. You know what, it was a good thing. I also was freaking out about the schedule and classes. We never did help our daughter ever, she did it all on her own. For our son it was even worse. For some strange reason which we have never figured out why he was invited to attend a leadership camp about 10 days before freshman orientation. So we put him o a plane with 2 suitcases and he had to figure out hw to take the bus from the denver airport over to Boulder and then find out where he was to report for camp. he oved into his dorm on his own with his 2 suitcases and we showed up on Labor Day. Boy was he glad to see us . In the long run i think starting college and doing it all on your own, picking oyur major signing up for classes on your own is th best way.

Moss road wrote - Indiana University has a campus in most larger cities in Indiana. Here in South Bend, for example, the average cost per year is only $4,000.00 per year. If you live at home with your folks and get a part time job, you can pay as you go and get out debt free with a degree from a great University in 4 years. Many folks here go on for two more years and get their master's.

If they don't want to live at home with their folks, they can get a roomie or two and share a house and expenses pretty reasonably priced.

There are some great options for education payment. At this price, who needs a scholarship? They help, but really, $4000.00 is less than a hundred bucks a week. Indiana University has a campus in most larger cities in Indiana. Here in South Bend, for example, the average cost per year is only $4,000.00 per year. If you live at home with your folks and get a part time job, you can pay as you go and get out debt free with a degree from a great University in 4 years. Many folks here go on for two more years and get their master's.

If they don't want to live at home with their folks, they can get a roomie or two and share a house and expenses pretty reasonably priced.

There are some great options for education payment. At this price, who needs a scholarship? They help, but really, $4000.00 is less than a hundred bucks a week.

Moss Road, you are right! There are other options for students Indiana sounds like they have a good system.

I really enjoyed reading everybodies posts about thier kids and their accomplishments and challenges. To tell you the truth neither of my kids set the world on fire academicaly when they were in High School. My daughter we found out 2 weeks before graduation form high School that she was so severly learning disabled that she got a full ride at our state university. Can you believe it she got completely through high school and the girl could barely read. Now I know you all are going to say as a parent you surely would have found out and how I must have been irresponsible. It was completely the opposit I assure you. every night I had to help her with her homework and she was very clever. Quiz me on this, quiz me on that... and when she wouldn't knwo she would have me read her the correct sections in the text. She was able to succeed because she trained her memory. She memories all phone numbers bank account numbers etc. it is very hard for her to read a phone book, so she simply memorized. She is an excellent listner, she ahs to b because it is a lot of effort to read text books. Finally her accounting teacher sent he to the nurse for evaluation because she would transpose and write he numbers backwards. turns out the gal was dyslexic.

At the univertiy she went early and was put in a program for students with learning disabilites. they taught her strategies on how to compensate for her disability and how to study in different ways. They provided tutors, and most importantly she was part of a group of students with learning disabilities and they supported each other. Took her 5 1/2 years but she did graduate magan *** Laude and went on to get her masters degree in special education and aced her program with a 4.0.

It is fun and exciting to read about your kids and the different things they are doing and studying. Some firends of ours, their son got a free ride to Stanford university that he turned it down becsue his girlfriend was going to UW Madison. He flunked out of Madison, and he was a bright kid. So being bright and being a star in high school is no guarantee of success in college.

Our kids were not academic stars but they both succeded ery well in college. The good thing about our friends son, he went to a local technical college and got his associate degree, then we went to UW Milwaukee and got his bachelors degree. That is the good thing about America, at any point in your life you can pick yourself up and try again. Over here in France it is not like that. If you don't go to college right out of high school you will never have an opportunity to go as an adult. the education is very ridgid and inflexible here. The American system is much much better. The American system allows for second chances.

The one good thing we did was we had the kids pay for their first semester and we paid for the second semester. So it was their money to start out with and i think that put them on the right path. If you are doing cost sharing with your kids, have them pay for the whole first semester on their own and you pay all of the second semester. Our kids had a college account of their own money that we forced them to save into out of their earnings from jobs they had during thier high school years. That money was the first money paid towards tuition and expenses.

 

[MossRoad]

Rox,
You mentioned about being able to go back to school. I started at Indiana University with the intention of teaching English. I found out I did not like the college system there. I switched to a state run technical college and got a couple of associate degrees in electronics. I have gone back to university and technical college several times over the last 30 years. I don't care about earning a degree. I just want to learn one or two particular subjects. Some of the larger universities frown on this practice, but I have found some of the smaller ones are very acceptable to this. I tell them straight up front, I have no intention of earning a degree, I just want knowledge on a particular subject and a good teacher. They say "you pay, we teach."

 

[Champy]

Not much help for immediate tuition needs....but we have a Fidelity credit card that rebates 2% (I think) of everything we charge and loads this directly into a College 529 account. So we automatically accrue this amount into a plan to pay for tuition. Account grows with tax free interest too.

Better than a free toaster, and we use the CC to pay for nearly everything. I even used the credit card to pay for my own Master's classes at IU!