Ways to Go to School Completely For Free

Paying for College
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<p>I am working on compiling a list of ways to go to school completely for free. This is not for my personal use, but more so to share with others. I need your help to get my list as complete as we can get it.</p>

<p>So far I remembered the guaranteed full ride scholarship list that I found floating around CC: <a href="http://automaticfulltuition.yolasite.com/"&gt;http://automaticfulltuition.yolasite.com/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

<ol>
<li>Guaranteed full ride scholarships</li>
<li>Sports or competition scholarships (football, basketball, debate, mock trial, etc)</li>
<li>ROTC</li>
<li>State-sponsored scholarship programs such as Florida Bright Futures</li>
</ol>

<p>I know there aren't many ways to go to school completely for free. I'm looking for methods that are guaranteed all four years of undergraduate. So saying "get third-party scholarships" wouldn't be a sustainable option since most third-party scholarships are only one-time payments.</p>

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<p>One of the main issues to consider is whether or not individual schools allow for stacking of scholarships. Many do not. At schools which do not allow stacking, adding in scholarships simply reduces the amt of another so there is no net gain.</p>

<p>For schools that do allow stacking, dept scholarships may be available. Double majors may allow for 2 dept scholarships to be combined. If there are any high school academic competitions that provide scholarship $$, those can be stacked on top of other scholarships. Honors programs may offer additional merit $$.</p>

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<p>You won’t be able to go to college for free with Bright Futures.</p>

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<p>Okay, scratch Bright futures. </p>

<p>Am I missing any guarunteed full ride opportunities?</p>

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<p>You know…there is whole thread in the pinned scholarship thread on this forum. Look there.</p>

<p>The first thing a student who wants to go to college for free needs to do is get TOP grades and TOP SAT scores.</p>

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<p>There are schools that offer NMF real full rides, They are in the NMF scholarship thread. And many schools have competitive full ride scholarships. There is a thread for that too.
<a href=“Links to Popular Threads on Scholarships and Lower-Cost Colleges - Financial Aid and Scholarships - College Confidential Forums”>Links to Popular Threads on Scholarships and Lower-Cost Colleges - Financial Aid and Scholarships - College Confidential Forums;

<p>You can serve in the military and go to college on the GI bill after discharge. But that doesn’t cover food and misc. expenses.</p>

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<p>Have a parent who works for a private university. At many private schools, dependent children can attend tuition-free (provided they can meet admission requirements). Then there are schools that participate in tuition exchange programs, where dependent children are eligible to compete for special scholarships, that may cover up to full tuition and in a very few cases room and board.</p>

<p>Also, many universities allow employees and spouses to take classes for free. So working for a university is another path. It would take time, but it’s an option.</p>

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<p>^Some public universities have this benefit also. Not H’s unfortunately. In recent years though, some publics and privates that do offer it have cut the benefit to 2/3 or half tuition.</p>

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<p>Look at the links for guaranteed free rides. I don’t think there are many if any of them Guaranteed free tuitions, yes, entire COA paid, no. </p>

<p>Athetic scholarships are not that easy to get. You have to be way up there in your sport, find a school that offers full rides for that sport. Many sports awards break down the awards into pieces, so only the very top athletes in the most important sports to a college will get a free ride. The number of kids I know who get full athletic awards is very small. This year at DS’s school, Three kids are already accepted for Ivy Leagues, a bunch more at other colleges and only one person has a free ride, and he’s probably the best high schooler in the country for his sport. You get some of the smaller, lesser known schools that might give full rides to athletes, but again, there is NO guarantee that most kids, much less the average kid can expect to get a full athletic scholarship.</p>

<p>ROTC awards can cover full tuition, give book money and a monthly stipend at their highest level, but again, not all ROTC awards do that. Those that are at that level are few. Again, NO guarantee of getting one; it’s a very competitive process.</p>

<p>So I don’t know of any GURANTEED way to go for free. You takes your chances, put in your apps and see if you get any offers.</p>

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<p>And at most places, that tuition benefit has a tax implication for the parent who takes it.</p>

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<p>“Full Ride” to me implies also getting room and board for free. That is very rare.</p>

<p>Guaranteed “full TUITION” scholarships do exist, but they are guaranteed only “if” you meet certain requirements. The University of Alabama has these…
<a href=“http://scholarships.ua.edu/types/out-of-state.html”>http://scholarships.ua.edu/types/out-of-state.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

<p>Most ROTC scholarship are “full tuition” as well, at least for Army and Navy. A stipend for books is included, plus an additional $300 per month for expenses. Air Force ROTC is normally only full tuition at in state public universities. A few colleges will give free room and board if you bring the ROTC scholarship to them. Tulane is one such school.</p>

<p>ROTC scholarships are, technically, not true scholarships. They are work-study programs, where you do the work after college. :-S </p>

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<p>QuestBridge?</p>

<p>There are some schools that stack institutional and departmental scholarships on top of National Merit to equal a full ride. I’ve seen reports that Texas A&M is still one of these. I had a full ride plus some from them years ago.</p>

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<p>Quest bridge scholarships will met full demonstrated need for students who win the award. It is my no means “free” because students will still have a student contribution and perhaps even a parent contribution, dependent on the EFC</p>

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<p>Be poor & smart
Be a recruited athlete</p>

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<p>Are any academic full rides as good as an athletic full ride? My niece plays a div. 1 sports. (Not a tippy top recruit- has never started as is a college senior.). She gets two plane tickets home and generous medical/dental insurance. She had her wisdom teeth removed without any expense to her mom.
Of course, it includes lots of clothing and shoes also</p>

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<p>

At some schools, athletic full-rides even get to take GPA-boosting fake courses-- what an awesome perk!</p>

<p>

Is it just me? Or is there something perverse about institutions of higher learning giving out more money to kids to play a sport, than to kids to study.</p>

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<p>Or be smart with high stats and willing to attend a lower ranked school.</p>

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<p>@GMT7. or be smart AND recruited athlete. Last year a local kid went to a 2nd tier D1 school. In his sport the athletic scholarships only cover half of costs, but he got an automatic merit for stats scholarship that covers the other half.</p>

<p>Nothing is really guaranteed unless student holds up his end of the bargain. Athletes whose injuries don’t resolve in a timely fashion and merit scholars who don’t keep the GPA up to stipulated level lose the money.</p>

<p>Academic free rides often include perks like an ipad, study abroad money, research money, book money, annual stipend etc. UHouston called the other day offering S one like that. Tuition/fees/rm/bd plus research money and study abroad. No plane rides or clothes though. Any NMF can have it automatically and he said they do not limit the number of awards.Not sure what they would do if suddenly they had 500 kids take them up on the offer. S has 2 full rides as back-ups- UKentucky and UCFlorida. Both are for NMF. And Bama, which is full ride the first year, but after that pays enough for the room but not board part. I guess those are rare since there are only 15,000 kids who can choose to take advantage of them.</p>

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<p>Yes, there are some academic full-rides that include money for summer research, travel, and so on. Check out the Morehead at Chapel Hill and the Robertson at Duke/Chapel Hill. They’re insanely competitive, but on a purely academic/EC level.</p>

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<p>Get a job that has tuition benefits, preferably at the university of your choice. Go part-time.
Tuition remission does not have any tax ramifications, the tuition is waived.
My son’s cheapest option is not where I work, there is a private college that is offering him enough merit aid to be cheaper by a few thousand dollars per year.</p>