Search for Scholarships & Instantly Enter to Win $5,000

Right now and until April 30, 2008, any new user who signs up to search scholarships at Scholarship Experts will be automatically registered in a contest to win $5,000 for college tuition. Contest or not, searching for scholarships online through these type of free services is a good part of an overall college financial strategy.

I’ve mentioned before that scholarships are posted all over the place from financial aid offices to local businesses & charities. Some schools might have a really good scholarship research department that specializes in local awards and grants, but most sources are incomplete in one way or another.

In an earlier post, I compared my experience with various scholarship search engines and I found them all to be very useful in unique ways. Even specialized databases can’t get all of the possible funding sources and keep them up to date, so there is no reason to limit your search to one site or another. Remember the federal government’s advice when it comes to evaluating which sites you sign up for, and watch out for these common scams.

Focus on free services, because any time anyone is offering financial aid assistance at a cost, that is cutting into your total potential aid! Over at Accepted to College, there’s a whole article dedicated to this topic, and the very absurdity of spending money in hopes of earning more financial aid. The best thing that a student can invest to pay for his/her college education is time and genuine effort.