By Alexandria Ambrose Staff writer
Senior year is a year for fun, celebrating being almost done with high school and finding a college to attend in the fall. For a lot of seniors this year is also finding a way to pay for college. On average the cost of out-of-state college is $37,800 per year; and most families don’t have that type of money to pay for four years of college.
One way students pay for college is scholarships. Scholarships are available in almost every category possible. But most seniors don’t start to fill out scholarships until the end of their junior year, because that’s when they find out how much their parents will be able to contribute to their college fund.
Seniors start to wish that they would have started filling out scholarships sooner.
“I tried almost everything to get my daughter to fill out scholarships her first year of high school, but she wouldn’t. So my husband and I came up with the incentive of $50 for every 10 scholarships she completed. It didn’t work right away, but when she really needed some money she would fill out the scholarships. Giving her $50 was a lot cheaper than paying almost $40,000 a year for school, and she was able to go to school almost free from it,” said Marygrove College advisor Rita Smith.
Cash incentives are becoming more popular for a lot of parents, because it is cheaper for them to give their child cash for filling out scholarships than paying for college out of pocket. Several seniors think they would have filled out more scholarships if they would have gotten cash for it.
Senior Alexandra Mapp said, “I wouldn’t have done more scholarships for cash. Scholarships are stressful and a lot of work.”
Although some said they would have accepted the money, but they would prefer to trade off.
“I would like to trade to for something like a shopping spree, rather than cash,” said senior Lyric Elliott.
Paying for four years of college is not cheap, and scholarships are the easiest way to pay for it. Starting sooner than later will make senior year less stressful-- for the student and the parent.
