Affording UCSD: Part 1

Well, I’m back for my second posting =)

As I think I mentioned in my last post, in this post I will explain how my wife and I received financial aid for my daughter Kelly when she attended UCSD. Between tuition, room and board, and other expenses, attending this school turned out to cost around $20,000 a year before aid. This was an amount that we could have afforded, but seeing that we would still have future college expenses and wanted to save as much money as possible, we pursued as much financial aid as we could. After receiving federal aid and scholarships, we were able to cut our costs down to about $8,000 per year; we did get some loans, but our daughter has agreed to pay off those after college. So, how did we cut down the costs of attending UCSD?

First of all, we had Kelly apply to as many scholarship programs as possible before starting college. Most of these programs were pretty competitive, so she was only able to win a few; but, these few did amount to about $6,000, which was a nice savings for the first year. After her first year, most of the scholarships that she received were through programs at UCSD. The scholarships that she applied for and won as a high school senior included:

-The Ronald McDonald House Charities Scholarship (http://www.rmhc.org/what-we-do/rmhc-u-s-scholarships/)

-Simon Youth Foundation Community Scholarship (simonyouth.scholarshipamerica.org)

-Best Buy Scholarship (bestbuy.scholarshipamerica.org)

-The AXA Achievement Scholarship (www.axa-achievement.com)

-and one more through her school

I would encourage you to have your teenager to apply for ALL of these scholarships while a senior, as they are attainable for any well-performing student. Kelly simply did well in school (almost all A’s) and was involved in her community, which qualified her for the awards (along with her essays, of course). In some cases, such as a few of these, the family’s financial situation is another factor, but the income ceiling is reasonable (however, don’t expect to be considered if you are making six figures). At the time of these scholarships I fell under the ceiling, although I am not sure if I do now.

Additionally, another scholarship that you MUST look into is the Robert C. Byrd Scholarship. If your child is ranked at or near the top of their class, has good grades, and did well on the SAT, then they are eligible to be nominated by their school for this program. Two students are nominated from each school, both of which should get the scholarship. The scholarship pays $1,500, and is renewable each year of college, so I would advise going for it. Kelly won it, and it has definitely been helpful. Check it out here: http://www.ed.gov/programs/iduesbyrd/index.html, and http://www.csac.ca.gov/doc.asp?id=125

Overall, I cannot stress enough the importance of having your child apply to AS MANY SCHOLARSHIPS AS HUMANELY POSSIBLE! While most are often only $500 to $2000, if you take the time to work hard on each application they definitely add up. Spending five hours on an application and essay may seem like a long time, but think about it. If that five hours wins you $500, that equates to $100 an hour! I would never dream of making that much! And yes, of course there will be applications where you don’t win, but the time is still worth it if you win at least a few scholarships. As a senior, Kelly applied to at least 30 (yes, thirty!) scholarships and only won 6. She spent at least an hour on each application/essay, so overall I would say at least 40 hours in total. But despite her losses, the $6,000 she earned still equates out to $150 per hour. As you can see, the time is definitely worth it!

My advice would be to find scholarships that are less competitive. Scholarships offered through your school, by certain companies (such as the ones mentioned earlier), and ones available only for specific majors are often easier to win. One’s that are offered online (i.e. where you submit an essay to a website) usually are too competitive or possibly even a scam, so I would suggest not spending too much time with these.

In the end, remember that most scholarships in existence are very competitive, so unless your child is Harvard material, don’t expect them to receive more than a few thousand at the most. But if they do set their mind to applying to as many as possible, they should be able to pull off at least a few thousand. I’ll post more information on scholarships in some of my future blogs.

So the summary from this is that Kelly (on average) received $4,000 to $6,000 in scholarships each year in college. Encourage your child to search for scholarships in the areas mentioned above and through their college, and they have a good chance of doing the same.

In part 2 of this posting I'll discuss the other forms of financial aid that we acquired.