Financial Aid/Scholarships

UHS Scholarship Information

FREE Scholarship Searches

Parkland / U of I Financial Aid Offices

FAFSA and
State and Federal Student Aid Programs

Writing a Scholarship Essay

Minority and Special Populations Opportunities

Financial Aid/College Cost Estimators and Calculators

College Illinois! and Bright Start-- State of Illinois College Programs

Scholarship Scams


UHS Scholarship Information

HELP!! How do we go about paying for college?

  • Fin Aid! is a top-quality link to many financial aid related sites, ranging from institutions to government programs to scholarship scam alerts. This really is an excellent site for anyone looking for money to go to school. It is an excellent starting point for information.

FAFSA, State and Federal Student Aid Programs

  • FAFSA on the Web is the U.S. Dept. of Education's site for the Free Application for Federal Student Aid. A PIN (Personal Identification Number) is needed to complete the online version, and this should be acquired before you actually sit down to do the FAFSA on the Web. Submitting the FAFSA online is the preferred method. A very limited number of paper forms may be available in the guidance office. Online applications are much more accurate and processed much more rapidly. If you are filing a federal income tax return, you should complete it before filing the FAFSA. The FAFSA site has a worksheet that may be downloaded in order to make it easier to complete the online form. STUDENTS PLANNING TO ENTER COLLEGE IN THE FALL OF 2010 NEED THE 2010-2011 FAFSA! (This link will open in a new window.)

  • Funding Education Beyond High School: The Guide to Federal Student Aid is a comprehensive resource on student financial aid from the U.S. Department of Education. Grants, loans, and work-study are the three major forms of aid available through the Department's Federal Student Aid office. Funding Education Beyond High School: The Guide to Federal Student Aid tells you about the programs and how to apply for them. These publications are in PDF and may be viewed online or printed. (This link will open in a new window.)
  • College Zone, the site of the Illinois Student Assistance Commission (ISAC), will hook you into their programs and an abundance of resources. This site is focused on Illinois students and as such it is the only site with a financial aid calculator that estimates eligibility for the State of Illinois' MAP Grant.

    Parkland / U of I Financial Aid Offices, additional information

  • Visit the Office of Financial Aid at Parkland College or Office of Student Financial Aid at the University of Illinois. If you're planning to attend one of these schools, these offices will probably be pretty important to you. Their sites have lots of resources for everyone.

  • Juniors (and their parents) looking for an early start on the FAFSA process can take advantage of FAFSA4caster. This web site allows high school juniors to learn about the financial aid process, gaining early awareness of aid eligibility, and much more. (This link will open in a new window.)
  • The US Dept. of Education has several helpful sites for information targeted to parents of pre-schoolers through adult students. The site also has a section regarding International Students.When you apply for aid, you'll need Title IV Schools Codes for the college code numbers. Another government site which gives information on monetary awards in return for volunteer service is AmeriCorps (also listed in more detail on our "Options . . " page).

Tax Breaks for Higher Education

  • Have you heard about the Tax Breaks for Higher Education, such as the HOPE Scholarship and Lifetime Learning Credits? The University of Illinois Extension service has a good site which is a guide to the variety of tax breaks available to make higher education more affordable. It is written in very understandable terms. This is a good resource, particularly for those middle-income taxpayer families who may have some college savings and/or find that the only breaks they'll get on tuition are those coming from a reduction in taxes.


    Maximizing Aid Eligibility

  • Finaid.org, has a section answering the questions parents frequently ask about maximizing aid eligibility.

CSS Profile Online

  • CSS Profile Online is the online completion site for the CSS/Financial Aid PROFILE®. This form is sometimes requested by private colleges and universities in order to get a more complete view of a student's financial need situation. A product of the College Board, there is a fee for completing this form. A credit card and a secure browser are needed for online completion.

Minority and Special Populations Opportunities

  • The Gates Millennium Scholars Program promotes academic excellence and to provides an opportunity for outstanding minority students with significant financial need to reach their highest potential. This program targets African-American, Hispanic American, American Indian/Alaska Native and Asian Pacific Islander American students with high academic and leadership promise who have a significant financial need. The career areas of education, engineering, library science, mathematics, public health, and the sciences are the focus of these scholarships.

  • Black Excel has a very extensive site with links to HBCUs and lot of information for minority students. One of their links is their Black Excel Scholarship Gateway which lists links to many minority scholarship programs.

  • The Thurgood Marshall Fund awards merit-based scholarships to students attending one of 45 historically black public colleges and universities. In Illinois, Chicago State University awards Thurgood Marshall Funds. Awards are made by the institution after the student has been accepted.

  • The United Negro College Fund (UNCF) has a nice searchable database of scholarship opportunities for African-American students. From their main page, click on "For Students" and then select "Scholarships" from the drop-down menu.

  • The Hispanic Association of Colleges and Universities has an online scholarship application system. Many scholarship and the criteria for each are listed.

  • The Hispanic Scholarship Fund is another gateway to potential funding for Hispanic students. This is a very nice site, listing scholarships for students who are presently seniors in high school as well as many for students who are already in college.

  • A listing of "counseling and financial aid sources to assist students from various ethnic and cultural backgrounds" is provided on the Multicultural Resources page from NACAC, the National Assoc. for College Admission Counseling.

  • The site is listed below, but FinAid's section on "Other Types of Aid" has an extensive listing of scholarships and other aid available based on the student being a member of some special, "targeted" population. These special pops include groups based on gender, service, nationality, intended major, athletics, religion, etc. This also lists additional means of making the task of paying for college a little less painful (installment payment plans, tax credits, and so on).

Financial Aid/College Cost Estimators and Calculators

  • Several organizations offer parents and students the tools to estimate their college costs, the expected family contribution (EFC) and capacity for debt. We provide links to a few of these, and all are free and anonymous.

  • ISAC's College Zone has a state and federal aid estimator which calculates what you might be eligible for from both sources. This is an excellent place to start if you are an Illinois resident and plan to attend an Illinois school. This is the only web-based calculator that will calculate for the MAP Grant. MAP is an Illinois program for Illinois students and is based on Expected Family Contribution (EFC).

  • FinAid: The Financial Aid Information Page provides custom calculators which can help you figure out how much school will cost, how much you need to save, and how much aid you'll need. This page has lots of good information.

  • Sallie Mae, a financial services company specializing in lending money for educational expenses (and sponsor of College Answer site), has a series of college planning calculators on the web. They work you through the steps from forecasting college costs to saving for college, borrowing, and on to repayment. This even has the option of adding more than one child's education to your savings equations (yikes!). Theirs is a nice sequential approach!

  • Student Loan Calculator/College Savings Calculator from MortgageLoan.com has an interactive calculator. You enter different variables and it gives you the numbers of how much you'll end up with after a certain span of time.

    FREE Scholarship Searches

    NOTE: These sites are all free, though they do have sponsors/advertisers who may get user information for marketing purposes. Sites usually state what their policy on this is and may give the user a choice of releasing their information or keeping it private. While each site offers similar information, they are each unique and results will vary. A student who is serious about finding as many scholarship sources as possible would be wise to register with several of these. Why pay private companies to do this searching for you when you can do it here for free? Results are emailed to the student. If the student has no email account, one can be easily established through such sites as Google/Gmail (www.gmail.com), Hotmail (www.hotmail.com), Yahoo! (www.yahoo.com), and others. Students should also be sure to check for scholarship information in the school guidance office.
     

    At no cost, these sites do searches similar to those done by private search companies' offerings that cost from $10 to hundreds of dollars. Remember: You don't pay money to get money! Beware of offers that sound "too good to be true." These may be scams. See our scam info at the bottom of this page.
    • nelnet is packed with information aimed at planning for college. This is a good site for answering questions and helping users sort through different options, as well as linking to a good scholarship search. Their free search is located under "Finance Your Education" on their home page. They even have a specific listing of scholarships for international students.

    • College Answer, is a great site with a useful scholarship search service to help students pay for their education. College Answer is part of the Sallie Mae financial services group and they do not share your info with third parties. The "Scholarship Search" button is on the right. They have a good parent resource section.

    • fastWEB should be a sure stop on your search for financial aid. You enter information about yourself, along with your e-mail address (if you have one), and Fastweb will locate scholarships that fit your profile. Even after you get your first list of matches, it will e-mail you when other matches are found.

    • Schoolsoup is another very good database of scholarship information. This is a commercial site, so they are, of course, trying to sell some services through their site, but they have a lot of good free information. They pledge that they do not share users' information with third parties.

    • FastAID Free Scholarship Search bills itself as "the largest private sector scholarship database in the world." This site is from the authors of "The Scholarship Book" from Prentice Hall, and they have been researching scholarships for many years! Some users report finding scholarships here that were not matched on any other search.

    • International Scholarships is a commercial resource for students wishing to study abroad.

    Search a Scholarship Database
    • The federal government has a Scholarship Matching site. Just type in your intended field of study and get a list of scholarships. This can be a real quick way to look for money. Of course, many of the scholarships are school-specific monies. This link will open in a new window.

College Illinois! and Bright Start-- State of Illinois College Programs

  • The State of Illinois has two programs for helping families plan for college expenses. These and other Section 529 plans are explained and linked on our "Planning for College" page. Even if a student is almost ready for or already in college, it's worth a visit to this page.

Scholarship Scams

  • "Is this a scam?" We get frequent calls from parents wondering if the scholarship search service that sent them mailings is "for real." Consumers should be very skeptical of these services, as they are usually not worth the money. (This is especially true with all the free Internet searches available and the resources such as those listed on this page.) The Federal Trade Commission's Scholarship Scam site targets the fee-based scholarship search services. Not only does it give the typical things to look for as signs of a rip-off, but it also lists companies which have engaged in these practices in the past and frequently change names or addresses. It's a very user-friendly site.

  • Fin Aid! is a top-quality link to many financial aid related sites, ranging from institutions to government programs to scholarship scam alerts. This really is an excellent site for anyone looking for money to go to school.


How do I write a scholarship essay?

  • Writing personal statements and scholarship essays will be easier if you check the advice that Kansas State University put together. This is brief and very practical advice (with some examples). If you only check one site for tips on writing, this could be the one to check.

  • Another site offering guidance on essays is AcademicTips.org. Their site offers step-by-step advice. FinAid! Essay help is similar, with more good advice.

  • Many scholarships require applicants to write an essay. Do you need help on that? Check ScholarshipHelp.org. This is a non-commercial site dedicated to helping scholarship applicants. The site has a huge amount of information on locating and applying for scholarships, as well as some very easily-understood explanations of other types of aid.

  • FinancialAidTips.org is a site similar to the one above. Again, it is non-commercial which means they're not trying to get you to pay for any of their advice or services.

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Last Updated: Thu, June 3, 2010 7:03 AM

Urbana High School (www.usd116.org/uhs)
1002 South Race Street, Urbana, Illinois 61801
217-384-3505 | fax 217-384-3532