It is National Scholarship Month, which means high school seniors are being exhorted to scoop up free money for college.

What they are often not told is that scholarships won from corporations, nonprofits and other “outside” sources can reduce — dollar for dollar — the grants and cost-reducing financial aid they might get from colleges.

Students with financial need should be aware of this potential disincentive before they spend countless hours pursuing scholarships that may leave them no better off. The same scholarships could, however, benefit affluent families by reducing the amount they have to pay or borrow.

Casey Lu Simon-Plumb, a sophomore at Swarthmore College in Pennsylvania, won more than a dozen scholarships during her senior year of high school, including a $20,000 Coca-Cola Scholars Foundation award.

She thought her winnings would dramatically reduce the $60,000 annual cost of attending the school.

Instead, the outside money replaced other aid Swarthmore had offered her, leaving her family’s contribution about the same.

Federal rules require schools to reduce need-based financial aid when students win outside scholarships to ensure that their total financial aid does not exceed their costs by more than $300.

Read the whole post: http://www.startribune.com/college-scholarships-are-not-free-money/352032061/

Before You List Colleges on Your FAFSA, Read This

The rules are changing this year, but the schools you list and the order you put them in can still affect your financial aid.

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You probably know that yourincome and assets are important factors in determining your eligibility for college aid. But did you know that the schools you list on the Free Federal Application for Financial Aid, or FAFSA, can also play a role?

When students file the online FAFSA, they can list up to 10 colleges that they’re interested in. Most students list them in preference order.

Statistically, students who are admitted to the college they list first on the FAFSA enroll there about half to two-thirds of the time. For the college listed second, about a third of students will enroll if they’re admitted. For the college listed third, about 10 percent will enroll if admitted.

It’s an open secret that some colleges used this insight in their admissions and financial aid decisions. For example, if a college wasn’t listed in the top three, it might just reject the student to try to improve its “yield,” which has an impact on some college rankings. That led to anomalous situations like a student being admitted to an Ivy League institution but rejected by less selective colleges. (No college has confessed to using FAFSA position in its admissions decisions because it is illegal under federal privacy rules concerning FAFSA data.)

To prevent future abuses, starting with the 2016-17 FAFSA, the U.S. Department of Education will no longer share your list of colleges with the schools receiving your FAFSA data. But your list will still be available to state aid agencies, and some states require that students list an in-state public college first to qualify for state aid. So the order in which you list your colleges remains important for financial-aid purposes.

Read the whole post: http://time.com/money/4124705/fafsa-listing-colleges/

Understanding the 2 Types of College Financial Aid

My family and I just returned from Charlotte, North Carolina, where my two boys competed in and won their first Jiu-Jitsu tournament.  On the ride home, one asked if he could get a college scholarship if he continued to win tournaments.

That reminded me how important financial aid is for most families. Almost all parents can benefit from understanding their options before their children apply.

Let’s explore the two different types of financial aid.

Read more: http://www.nasdaq.com/article/understanding-the-2-types-of-college-financial-aid-cm546836#ixzz3sznVfBT3

How Divorce and Separation Can Affect Financial Aid

When students apply to college, there are many forms to complete. And if they are applying for financial aid, the FAFSA is No. 1 on the list. This form asks the obvious questions: name, date of birth, Social Security number, address etc. It also asks questions about parents’ financial information to determine financial aid eligibility.

If you are separated or divorced, this part of the FAFSA raises many questions:

• How will colleges treat the income of two separate families?

• Which parent’s income is used for determining the expected family contribution, or EFC?

• Do both parents have to report their incomes?

• What do the words “custodial parent” mean?

Read the whole post: https://www.teenlife.com/blogs/how-divorce-and-separation-can-affect-financial-aid

Why German-Style Education Is Coming To America

Minnesota State Senator Terri Bonoff gets a lot of requests to attend ceremonial openings. But when Swiss-German manufacturing company Bühler asked her to cut the ribbon at its new apprenticeship program, it sparked her interest. Based on the German dual system, Bühler’s apprenticeship program brings in trainee-hires as full-time employees with benefits, and partners with a local college to provide its trainees with classroom instruction – alongside the experience they are gaining on the job.

Health sciences is one of the four key areas in the PIPELINE project

It was the first time she’d heard about the dual system – which seamlessly combines education and real world work – but on a subsequent trip to Germany, Senator Bonoff found out more. In the German dual system, students spend a significant amount of time in the workplace before they even graduate from high school. After high school, many students transition directly into jobs at companies where they’ve already apprenticed; the result being that they enter the job fully versed in the necessary technical skills, soft skills and familiarity with the workplace culture.

Read the whole post: http://www.forbes.com/sites/nicholaswyman/2015/11/22/why-german-style-education-is-coming-to-america/

7 Questions You’ll Be Asked About College Over The Holidays (& How To Respond!)

It’s the most wonderful time of the year: the holidays! The joy will be spread amongst the world through holiday music, festive décor and (dreaded) family dinners, but there may be one thing dampening that joy: questions about college. Your family may take the awkward in-between dinner courses silence to focus on your upcoming life transition, even though there are so many other topics to cover.

It may seem awkward to have all the attention on you, and you may even get tripped up on how to answer everyone’s questions, but fear not! HC talked to Christine Logel, social psychologist and assistant professor of social development studies at the University of Waterloo, to give you all the best responses to both answer or avoid all the questions thrown at you.

Read the whole post: http://www.hercampus.com/high-school/7-questions-you-ll-be-asked-about-college-over-holidays-how-respond

Experts Weigh In On Common College Application Mistakes

A lot of high school seniors are applying for college right now, and some of them are likely making mistakes on their applications that are sending them straight to the trash.

Most colleges recommend high school students start thinking about the college application process as early as their freshman year.

“The whole college admissions process, the application process, everything has changed dramatically. A lot of people think that it’s just the GPA or it’s just the SAT score, but getting into the college of your choice goes well beyond that,” teacher Deann Scherer said.

New research from the National Honor Society finds that a majority of college admissions officers say participating in extracurricular activities gives students a competitive edge, but that doesn’t mean just sports.

They’re most impressed by students who’ve done long-term volunteer work in their community.

View the whole post: http://pittsburgh.cbslocal.com/2015/11/19/experts-weigh-in-on-common-college-application-mistakes/