Smart Financial Planning For Future College Students

Marnie Hayutin
Cincinnati Magazine,

Outstanding students are often rewarded with merit-based aid packages—especially at top schools with big endowments. Seniors at Clark Montessori, for example, collectively received $4.2 million last year in mostly merit-based aid, according to Clark’s college advisor Steffanie Gentile. If you’re an exceptional student, here’s Gentile’s advice on securing merit scholarships:

• Show them your stuff. Colleges and universities are looking to create a cohesive community, and they want students who are not only bright, but talented and community-minded as well. If you’re the type of student who started a camp for children with Down’s syndrome or delivered groceries to a home-bound senior citizen every week (real students have done these), let the committee know. Let your teachers and counselors know, too, so they can write you great recommendations.

• Call and ask. Schools may have scholarships that aren’t listed on their web sites or on their main applications. Call the admissions office and ask specifically if there are any scholarships for which you might be eligible.

• Watch the deadlines. Scholarship applications are often due before the main application. No matter how deserving you are, if your forms are late, there may be no money left for you.

• Loans come in two forms—subsidized and unsubsidized. If at all possible, you want a subsidized loan. The government pays the interest of a subsidized loan while the student is in school, so he doesn’t worry about making payments until after graduation (presumably he’ll be employed and have an income at this point). Unsubsidized loans are traditional loans from private banks, like a home equity loan, and either the student, his parents or his spouse would have to start paying on the loans immediately.

• Get rid of underperforming rental properties. Retirement funds and the equity in your home are excluded as assets when considering your financial aid need, but rental property is fair game.

• Colleges and universities with big endowments may offer grants or tuition reductions. Peterson’s College Money Handbook will help you explore billions in aid offered by schools all over the U.S.

• Look for scholarships in other places. Local companies offer scholarships for employees and their families, as do several local organizations. And check out www.finaid.org/scholarships/unusual to find some, well, unusual scholarships, such as the David Letterman Telecommunications Scholarship at Ball State University intended for “average students who nevertheless have a creative mind.”

• Minimize the student’s assets. When evaluating a family’s financial need, money in the student’s name (in a UGMA account, for example) is assessed at a higher rate, meaning the school expects you to use more of it for tuition. Parents’ assets, conversely, are assessed at a lower rate; schools understand that the family has other expenses besides tuition. To qualify for more aid, spend the student’s money on other needs—computers, orthodontia—by fall of the student’s senior year in high school. Financial aid forms, which use the data from the previous fiscal year, are due January 2.

Cincinnati Magazine,
Colleges & Universities, September 2005