I was recently accepted to college and I will be paying full price, as I don’t qualify for financial aid and my college doesn’t hand out merit scholarships (kinda weird imho). My parents and I agreed that I would apply for some scholarships to try and foot my part of the bill (I’m a pretty strong student academically). However, I’ve noticed that I qualify for very few scholarships because of my economic status, race, gender, etc. Are there any good scholarships out there that relatively privileged kids can apply for and have a good shot of netting at least some cash?
Check locally. We are far from upper class, but we live in a low SES region so we are much better off than most. We have a couple of large trusts that either give $$$ to a large number of kids or handle dozens of local scholarships. Outside of those, check local branches of veterans’ groups, credit unions, and places like the Wednesday club. Grades are important, but many also focus on leadership and community service.
Our school’s guidance office puts out a newsletter that contains many of them with deadlines, etc. so you may want to start there first.
We found very few outside scholarships available due to our income level. My S received a small one through an extracurricular he was involved in. Both my kids applied to a lot of schools that offered their own merit aid, and that is where they got the big bucks.
If your parents want you to pay for part of your college expenses and allowed you to choose a college that doesn’t offer merit you still have a couple of options. If you’re a US citizen you can take the federal student loan. It totals $27k over 4 years ($5500, $6500, $7500, $7500). Many students also work. You can probably earn $3k/year just by working in the summer. If you work during winter break you can earn more. That gives you a contribution of ~$10k/year.
Most financial aid (either merit-based or need-based) comes from the schools themselves. Large, renewable outside scholarships are pretty rare and hard to get, and as noted above, the deadlines for applying have passed. If you take the steps that austinmshauri mentioned (take out small federal loans and get a summer job), are your parents able and willing to pay the rest of the cost of attendance?
My kids aren’t eligible for FA, so they only applied to schools that offered merit for their stats. My current junior received about $7000 in local scholarships, but applied for almost all of them, like 40 essays (and one was $6000, the largest out of all offered). My 24 received a $5000 alumni scholarship sophomore year at Rutgers business school because of grades.
Choose a less expensive school to start with and then transfer.
Choose a less expensive school to reduce your overall obligation.
Choose a school that offers merit money.
Choose to attend a local school and live at home.
Take loans.
Get a job and work your way through school.
Three in college next year - wow. I would think any type of financial aid in that scenario would be welcome. It sounds like so far you have been successfully using a good strategy.
Of course, it is likely that one will find better choices by planning earlier rather than later. If the cost constraints were fully known before application season, application lists to colleges (and outside scholarships) could have been made with cost targets in mind. Trying to figure out how to pay for college after many college (and outside scholarship) deadlines have passed will result in fewer choices.