My first scholarship

Over my next few post I will be discussing scholarships that I have received.
My first scholarship was actually a football scholarship. Now I know what your thinking what does he know about scholarships. I know plenty if you haven’t been following my post no problem but if you have you already have began to know and understand some of the aspects of getting a scholarship.

What I know about scholarships

What I learned while I was on my athletic scholarship was that you need to know the terms of your scholarship. Scholarships are renewable unless specified. Meaning next year you may get a chance to renew your scholarship for that academic school year. I learned about grants. And I actually learned this from my college football teammates. They taught me about pell grants. Which allows me to share that information with you.

What I know about Grants

What I learned about Pell Grants are that they are similiar to scholarships, you don’t have to pay the money back. You can combine Pell Grants with scholarships. When you combine Pell Grants with Scholarships your College or University will issue you a refund for the amount left over from your the difference between your tuition, scholarship and financial aid. So basically if your college tuition is $15,000 and you have a scholarship and a full pell grant. Say your scholarship is $15,000, which would pay your full tuition. Now you have the $5,000 Pell Grant in your college account. And you will be issued a refund check for that full amount. You can do whatever you want with this money.

This semester, I recently showed my girlfriend how to do this. She received a pell grant refund check for 2,500 for this semester and the same for next semester. Hopefully she stops by my blog to comment on that. Actually it was ironic how I was able to show her how to get a form of financial that I myself was not able to get. On that note anyone that really appreciates and supports the efforts of scholarshipsupport.com please spread the word please comment. Thank you. Good Luck to you all!

Why haven’t you gotten a Scholarship?

Since I just asked you a question with the header above I want you to ask yourself a question now. Do you really want a scholarship? Or are you just saying it because everyone else is saying. Believe it or not some people use this as an excuse not to go to college. You have got to be more responsible. Apply! Why haven’t I got a scholarship yet? What if I told you that you haven’t gotten a scholarship because of you actions. Maybe you think your doing the right thing but your going all wrong about it. You need to use popular effective resources. In this post I have included 4 of the top free scholarship and financial resources. The are free! What have you got to lose?

Possible Reasons you haven’t found a Scholarship

Are you doing the things listed below to increase your chances of getting a scholarship?

1) Are you using a scholarship search- Need money for college? Use FastWeb’s free scholarship search to find information on more than 600,000 scholarships!

2) Have you registered with FastWeb

3) Have you registered with ScholarshipExperts.com

4)Have you registered with College Week Live

Above I have listed 4 scholarship services that you should be using. Now I will warn you ahead of time that to use each of these services takes about 7 minutes. Because you have to create a profile and register yourself. But that is nothing compared to what you will gain from using each of these services. They are all unique and offer different scholarship and financial aid opportunities.

Scholarship Advice from my personal experience

As far as being discouraged, don’t be. I used to think that I couldn’t get a scholarship but I have been in graduate school for over 1 year for free, because I did my paper work and applied for scholarships. I also took advantage of opportunities for financial aid, tuition discounts and tax credits. This is what makes me an expert. I actually blog from personal experience, not like many others. With that being said it is absolutely imperative that you listen and take my advice. Never pass any scholarship opportunity up. Even if your just reading an advertisement write down the website url or web address. If your reading my blog, subscribe to it, comment or email me: mel@scholarshipsupport.com give me feedback. Good Luck!

My Sacrifice for Free Graduate School

I must say that it is very ironic that last week I write a post about sacrificing to find scholarships. I even went as far as mentioning my own personal experiences about quitting a full time job with great benefits to go to graduate school for free. Now with H1N1 going around I am kind of concerned because the cases are becoming more prevalent and within the past 24 hours I have lost my voice almost completely. Of course I had a 10 page paper to type and I have to turn that in today.

Interning for scholarships

I am a graduate intern right now at a middle school. About 2 weeks ago one of the schools employees, a learning tutor was telling me about how she gets paid for the job but she doesn’t have benefits. I kind of am in the same boat, I don’t have health insurance. It’s a sacrifice I made to go to graduate school but it’s a tough price to pay. Especially from a person who usually gets sick and can’t seem to shake a common cold for weeks. I’m currently writing this post on my break. But I am starting to get worried because I am constantly around people. And now that I think about it that same girl, the learning tutor was the first staff member that I remember being sick and she works in the classroom with me.

Whats my point my point is people don’t think of the whole if your sick stay at home dilemna until it hits close to home. If she doesn’t work she doesn’t get paid. And that my friends is the reason why I quit my last job. I was working full time as a 12 month employee. Oh that was until one of my co-workers asked the boss for her vacation time. The boss being fairly new and not familiar with our contract said we didn’t get any vacation time. Then once this was cleared up they decided okay fine you get your vacation time but we are going to advise against it. They immediately rewrote our contracts saying that we wouldn’t get paid for sick days, we wouldn’t get holidays and snow days. Just completely turned us into 10 month employees with no vacation or no sick days. Now I 100% see why people are coming to work spreading these flus and viruses. It actually bothers me even more knowing that two certified teachers (who have paid sick days) came into work sick last week. You got to be kidding me.

Me on the other hand I’m here because I have to observe a math lesson so I can teach it myself to at risk students. No keep in mind I have no intentions on being a math teacher. I haven’t even taken a graduate course about teaching math. But once again it’s sacrifices that get you the financial aid you need.

I just thought I’d share an experience with you. And on a final note our economy is going crazy right now. We have college tuition rising, families can’t afford college, families losing homes, jobs, cars etc. We are in a recession, the only good news about financial aid is that the federal amounts of financial aid have increased slightly to offset the cost of tuition and college expenses. Those of you who have received Pell Grants in previous years have definitely noticed an increase in the award this year.

Students who make sacrifices for free education

All of these people make small sacrifice for any where from 1-4 years to pay for college. It’s a sacrifice that can change your life. All of these positions allow you to gain real world experience dealing with people. You provide a service and in exchange you get your tuition discounted or paid in full.
*Update on my situation I went to class at 4:00pm eastern. I told my professor I was sick, she told me to go home and on my way out some of the girls in class told me that H1N1 is on the campus.