I am going to doubt that I’m going to receive financial aid based off of need because both of my parents work. I used to have a job and now my college savings from that job is decreasing due to gas money, currently looking for another job (might have one soon). Any tips on how to make college cheaper? I plan on applying for scholarships and merit financial scholarships. Any creative ways that could make college cost cheaper?
Look for schools that have great merit aid, if you qualify. Schools will often have tiers of merit scholarship aid amounts, all of which will help out with costs. These scholarships can range from full rides to $5,000-10,000 a year.
As far as quirky scholarships, there are ones for anything from being tall to being a female pursuing aerospace engineering. Scholarship searching can take some time, but it’s worth it!
The best scholarships come from colleges to which you get accepted…so look for schools where your SAT or ACT scores and GPA are near the top of the applicant pool.
You need to have a conversation with your parents regarding how much they can and will pay for you to attend college each year.
Look at your instate public universities.
If you are using all of your savings for a car…maybe ditch the car?
<<<<plan on applying for scholarships and merit financial scholarships. <<<
This likely won’t work. Most private awards are small and only for one year and will consider need …so you won’t get the four year help you need.
You need to apply to the schools that will give you large merit based on your stats. What are your stats?? What is your major and career goal ?
How much will your parents pay each year
What are your instate options? You need to look at NPC for each college. Remember some that offer merit are expensive to start with. DS got some large merit awards but some of those schools were still his most expensive options.
What are your stats (GPA, ACT) and major?
I’m looking at Miami Oxford to major in Speech Pathology. I’m lucky enough to live near one of its regional campuses so my first year I would take classes at a regional campus. I got a 27 on the ACT and have a 4.0 GPA, and am a College Credit Plus student at the college I am plan on attending my first year. And I just got a part time job.
You could possibly reduce your college cost by accelerating your degree and graduating in 3 rather than 4 years. Take advantage of AP credit, DE credit, and take community college classes each summer. The savings are significant. Also agree with above to seek out merit scholarships.
Excellent advice!!! Through College Credit Plus (Dual Enrollment), you have the potential graduating high school with as much as 60 college credits and College Credit Plus is totally free for Ohio HS students. The COA at Miami Oxford is ~$30K per year. if you graduate in 3-years, your savings is $30K and in 2-years, it is $60K! If a graduate degree in Speech Pathology is advantageous, you have the option of completing your master’s degree in 3 or 4 years, post high school. So, take as much DE credits as your schedules allows. Does College Credit Plus allows high schools seniors to spend their entire senior year on the campus of the nearby college (~30 DE/college credits)?
One of my kids completed her undergraduate degree requirements in 2-years with 45 DE credits (plus 2 APs) and two summer sessions. One of those summer session (9 credits) is a mandatory state graduation requirement and the other was done through online courses (9 credits). She is considering an additional year for a second major.
A graduate degree in speech pathology is REQUIRED…not just advantageous. One cannot become licensed without a masters degree. In addition, if one wants their Certificate of Clinical Comoetence from the American Soeech and Hearing Association, a masters is required.
Both the CCC and licensure also require a supervised clinical year. This can be the first post masters job.
In my state (CT) you cannot get a department of education certification as a speech pathologist without a department of health license…masters required. In fact…when I go to renew my SDE certification, I am required to submit a copy of my current license.
The speech pathology masters program is a two year course of study.
@thumper1, if a student ONLY pursues an undergraduate degree in Speech Pathology/Audiology, what are the career options without a master’s degree and license/“Certificate of Clinical Competence”? BTW, thanks for the clarification. I wasn’t sure about the advance degree requirement, so worded my post to reflect that.
An under grad degree in speech pathology will NOT enable the person to work as a speech pathologist. The entry level degree is the masters.
They might be able to get a job as a para professional, but not as a certified staff member.
Anyone who wants to be a speech pathologist needs to understand that a grad degree IS required…and there are limited spots in grad programs, and they are competitive. There are some graduate assistant awards, and grad fellowships, but not all grad SLPs are fully funded. Most are not.
So to the OP…keep in mind, you will also have graduate school costs…two years for a masters…after you complete your undergraduate degree.
Agree with @thumper1.
A full master’s degree is required to work in California. A BS will get you minimum work as a SLPA (assistant).
Additional graduate coursework is required to work in different settings.
If the setting is in the hospitals and clinics, the state requires coursework, testing, practicum hours served in a clinical setting (pediatric and geriatric) and an application, plus fees.
If the setting is an educational setting, the state requires coursework, testing, practicum hours served in 3 educational settings and an educational credential.
Plus, depending on the school, a thesis may be required for most programs.
There are no scholarships for the grad school programs. Most students fund their grad programs by using loans.
In other words, there is no fast track nor money for this program. (You aint getting out cheaply.)
A masters degree is absolutely required in order to work as a speech-language pathologist. Following completion of the masters, the student is required to do a 9 month clinical fellowship year in order to get certified by ASHA. There are additional requirements/tests for state licensure. Once you are licensed and certified you will need to keep up with the ASHA and state requirements for continuing education.
In our state, a person is permitted to work in a school or for a preschool agency as a “speech teacher” or “speech correctionist” if he/she graduates from college with a state teaching certification in speech and hearing disabilities and then continues on for a masters in something… it does not have to be speech. There are many school based speech teachers in parts of our state who have gone this route.
Going this route ^ means that you are NOT a speech pathologist.
The saving are huge I’ve noticed with AP and DE. I have saved at least over 1000 dollars with just 6 credit hours for my fall semester this year! And I have 15 AP credits already so I could graduate in 3 years (which is a goal of mine, but really unrealistic). I’m thinking about doing my graduate the same school I did my undergrad but like @thumper1 said it’s really competitive!
@scsoprano
Shorten your time in college. Transfer all those AP credits and do not believe the school that says it just isn’t the same as actually taking Composition 1. BS.
My child transferred in 28 or 29 (I can’t remember) credits, and she found her school started a “Degree in 3 years” program. (Rowan University, NJ) She completed her freshman (and sophomore) years of college in one year, via 2 semesters and a summer course, and will enter as a Junior in the fall. She worked hard, to be sure (3.9 GPA), but the transferred credits helped lighten her load. The summer course was on campus and both housing and tuition were covered by the college because she is in the degree in 3 year program - we paid to feed her, but we nicely do that anyway 
The bit about outside scholarships ---- and I know a lot about this — they are ALL very competitive, and most of them are for graduating seniors in high school only.
People who haven’t done the research will throw out stuff about scholarships (for example) when you are very tall that are so easy to get because no one applies. Yeah, ok. Blunt talk - that is a bunch of BS.
My daughter researched for an entire summer, very efficiently. I could give out that list, but I don’t, because part of the process of growth and maturity is learning to do the work yourself. My daughter did - she organized a brilliant list, with all the opening dates, URLs, due dates, amount of the award and her status. She worked on it, writing custom essays, getting letters of recommendation, hitting those deadlines, every single day of her senior year starting with doing the research in June to generate the list thru the following March when the last legitimate scholarship she was eligible for closed.
She is a smart girl, she has raised 3 puppies for a guide dog program, she has leadership, more volunteer hours in other areas (for many years, not just for one event). She is not a minority, and we are not financial needy. She won $8,000 or thereabouts. Meanwhile, she found the school she attends, which offers significant merit aid and has that degree in 3 years program. From them she was awarded $11,500 a year. The COA of that school is about 28,000. It will work out that she can graduate with ZERO debt. The searching and project managing she did was valuable and she learned a lot, but it wasn’t just a simple little “toss hat in the ring at the last minute and win tons of money” that everyone who doesn’t know likes to pretend it is.
On the other hand my foster son is a year older than her, a minority and economically needy. He worked extremely hard also, and won the Gates Millennium Scholarship and well as the Horatio Alger state level scholarship. There were 1,000 winners of Gates ---- and 57,000 applicants. Let me say it again - there are no easy to win, un-competitive scholarships.
Additional advice:
If money is really tight, you should find a school you can commute to, saving big bucks on housing. Since you will need grad school, do the best you can to keep debt low, and grades high, so you will be competitive for admission to grad school and maybe get money. I’m not familiar with this, so I won’t offer any advice.
Look into programs for summer experiences in your field that pay a stipend. If that doesn’t work, look or create volunteer opportunities to help at kids summer camps, assisted living, hospital or rehab facilities where your major will leave you 
There are always volunteer opportunities, and you can learn a lot from them.
Good luck!