Paying for College Once You're There

Paying for College
1

I’m already receiving enough scholarship money to cover about 14 hours per semester, which is basically full-tuition, give or take a few hundred dollars. I have two years remaining, but I’m looking into perhaps getting more scholarships to help offset some of the costs that I’m incurring for stuff like room/board and textbooks and such. My room and board can come out to about $4,600/semester.

My scholarships are timed though, and they run out in Fall 2016. With room/board, that’ll get upward of about $20,000 by then. I have the money saved up from working a job the last two years while in community college, but I’d like to avoid spending all of that, if possible.

I missed my university’s scholarship application deadline because I am a spring transfer and their online scholarship application said “YOU MUST HAVE A RECOMMENDATION FROM A FACULTY MEMBER HERE AT THE UNIVERSITY TO BE CONSIDERED FOR SCHOLARSHIPS”. Well, since I’m a spring transfer and the application was due this past week, it was not possible to get a letter of recommendation from a faculty member here at my university, so I basically left half of the application blank and didn’t turn it in since there would’ve been no point.

And the scholarship application is closed until next spring. I’ve tried contacting the scholarship office and asked if they would’ve allowed me to submit recommendations from professors from my previous college and they said they’ll look into whether or not they can submit my application at all. I don’t think it’ll do much though since half of the basic info is missing, which makes me look incompetent.

I am not eligible for the Pell Grant. It’s early enough in the year to apply for outside scholarships, but I have bad luck with outside scholarships. A lot of times, I feel like I’m giving my info to those companies that do things like, “$10,000 scholarship, enter to win!” for them to just make money off of my info and steal my identity. I’ve never heard back from scholarships I’ve applied to. Fastweb and Scholarships are the sites I mainly poke through for these things.

What options do I have to yield the maximum return to help offset costs? I’ve thought about a job, but most jobs on campus and such pay about $9/hr and at10 hrs/wk, I’d only earn probably $3,600 by the time I graduate. That’s about the cost for the room portion of room/board.

2

You are 100% right about that. They aren’t a scam, but in terms of time spent-to-reward you would be better off working at McDonalds’s for 8 hours at minimum wage than spending 8 hours on Fastweb. The only outside scholarships that I would actively encourage people to look for would be ones that are offered locally in your home community by civic groups, but in your case even those might be a waste of time because many are targeted towards high school seniors going into college rather than college students already there.

Do you have any departmental scholarships available, specific to your major or college within your university? I know you said that your university’s overall deadline has passed but could there be other awards available on a different time table. It’s frustrating for you since you came in the Spring so you’re kind of “off sync” a little with the way the university generally operates.

The on-campus job is probably a good source. I agree that you’re not likely to cover everything, but it can help quite a lot and depending on what the job is it might be another good way to meet/network with faculty members which can help you with next year’s scholarship.

3

Look into becoming an RA for next year? I don’t know if your college gives a free dorm room to RA’s but if yours does, that will effectively cut your expenses in an efficient way. Unless you get a very ornery group of Freshman, the job shouldn’t be too time consuming.

Agree with Dimitri that you should explore on campus work, especially if you’re editing or doing research for a professor or something of that ilk. Fastest way to get faculty enthusiastic about you is for them to see your great work ethic!

Good luck. I agree that the Fastweb type scholarships are a waste of time, but make sure you’ve exhausted the departmental offerings (they may be labeled fellowships and not scholarships on the college website). Or there may be a university fellowship office- if so, go meet with someone there to see if there are things you are eligible for.

4

@blossom‌

I have looked into the option of becoming an RA and I don’t have enough experience with living on campus to be an RA. At my university, RAs get a room with stipends and a meal plan. They require at least two semesters of living on campus before you can apply and this is my first semester ever. They allow for students with only one semester of experience to apply for summer RA positions but I didn’t know about that until after all the info meetings had passed (I found out a day too late).

But being an RA would definitely cut down on costs immensely.

I’m keen to remain on campus because it’s close to everything, there’s no nightmare commute that you could potentially die on, and you get a meal plan for food.

I would only be eligible to apply for an RA position probably this coming fall or next spring.

5

At D’s school, campus food service is usually looking for students. Not glamorous but since open almost 24hrs there should always be times that would work. I think some meals come along with it which could be cost savings.

6

Apply for the RA job anyway. There are always exceptions, always people who leave.

7

I attempted to find out information for applying for the RA job. There’s no possible way to apply until next fall. Apparently they had over 250 applications and they told me there’s a 0% chance there wouldn’t be enough people to fill in alternates.

8

what about applying a for the residential tutor job for math? through reslife?
And what about applying for a tutoring job through the math department?
And how about checking the REU program?