Paying for College Blog

Tips from SmartMoney On Evaluating Award Letters

An article in personal finance magazine, SmartMoney, provides the following tips on evaluating award letters: 

Pennsylvania Governor Proposes Tuition Relief Plan To Assist College Students

Here are the details of Governor Rendell's Tuition Relief Act, which applies to Pennsylvanians who attend community colleges or state-owned universities.  Rendell has urged the General Assembly to approve his plan quickly so that it can assist students as early as this fall: 

Nebraska Expands Collegebound Scholarship Progam

It is interesting to see more states emphasizing solutions to assist students who live in the state and attend their public educational institutions (earlier post about Connecticut partnering with credit unions).  Here are the highlights of the Collegebound Nebraska Scholarship Program:

Take the National Financial Literacy Challenge; $1,000 Scholarship Available for High School Students

The Treasury Department is currently running the National Financial Literacy Challenge.  Here is the press release from the Charles Schwab Foundation describing the program: 

• Challenge consists of 35 questions pertaining to financial literacy (see examples below)
• Teachers can sign up their students at the following U.S. Treasury’s website
• Foundation is awarding $1,000 scholarships for up to 100 high school students (if more than 100 ace the exam winners will be selected by lottery)
• Foundation will also award $1,000 to the student’s school or organization that contributed to the student’s financial education
• Challenge will be administered from November 3rd to November 26th
• Early results were not promising; among the 46,000 students who took the test in the spring, the average score was 56%; 35 students aced the exam

Scholarships Available for Creative Teens

Thank you to Jennifer Boggs for this information regarding the Scholastic Art and Writing Awards, which awards $3.25 million in scholarships annually (quite an impressive list of past recipients): 

It seems every day more news stories emerge about the challenges students and parents face paying for college, but it can be especially difficult if you’re not an athlete or honor student…but an artist.  The Scholastic Art & Writing Awards, now in its 86^th year, gives creative teens a chance to earn money for college by using their talents in 25 categories of art and writing including poetry, photography, graphic design, science fiction and sculpture.