Advice to Aspiring College Students: Find Scholarships

September 17, 2012 Riley Teaching

Some of you may or may not know that part of the California budget being voted on this November is the discontinuation of the APLE program, which is a loan assumption program for educators, wherein every year of employment at a poor performing school (API in the lowest 20%) forgives up to about $4,000 of your debt per year for four years. This is a great program, and I fear I may be in the bridging group, where some reps have told me I’ll be grandfathered in, but others seem to feel I will only benefit from one or two years’ worth of forgiveness as opposed to the entire 4 four years. Either way, I still have the rest of my student debt to pay off.

For my undergraduate degree, I earned a full scholarship that covered my entire tuition plus books, fees, and dorm room. Needless to say, it was *totally* awesome. I had taken my time with the application process and did my research to find the way to pay for school. I cannot say the same for my credentialing and Masters program process. I needed to enroll in school immediately in order to get the job (that I needed immediately), and I didn’t have time to apply for scholarships. So, lucky me, now I have debt.

I still have to clear my credential, which is another 5 college courses, and since I have until 2016, I am taking my time to find some scholarships or grants for which I may (hopefully) be eligible.

Please think about scholarships to pay for your college degree! For starters, you don’t want a mountain of debt when you graduate. You should also know that most student loans are held by the government and are not covered by bankruptcy protection, should you ever find yourself on that path. So, whatever else may be, you WILL owe that money. So if my message hasn’t been any clearer: focus on scholarships and avoid that whole college debt path.