My family’s story for getting scholarships

This is the season when students across the country are applying for colleges. The cost for higher education has risen tremendously over the years. In this article, I will share my family’s story for how we obtained approximately $200,000 in scholarship money and other financial aid. My hope is that some of the information might apply to you.

I have three children, all of whom were good students. Their college paths were quite different as were the ways in which we paid for their schooling. In each case, I was very involved in helping them find money. Their job was to focus on getting good grades. My job was to research various colleges and universities based upon their desired areas of study and where they might want to attend school.

Philosophically, I tend to believe where one goes to college, and the amount of money spent on it, should coincide with the desired career path. For example, the demand for special education teachers and speech pathologists is so high that graduating students will find plenty of opportunities regardless of where they went to school. On the other hand, having the pedigree of a prestigious university could open many more doors for those choosing certain professions such as those involving law, medicine, and business. This way of thinking played a role in our story.

My first daughter wanted to become a special education teacher at an elementary school. She was, and still is a hard worker. She graduated as the salutatorian of her class. For those who are not familiar with this term, the salutatorian is the second-highest ranked student of the graduating class. Although she had a high grade point average along with an excellent resume of student activities and community involvement, her SAT scores were simply above average. As a result, she did not receive very much scholarship money. Given the lack of scholarships, and the fact that most school districts place little emphasis on where one graduates, she started off at San Joaquin Delta College.

Why I like her story is because too many local students seem to look down on Delta College for one reason or another. My daughter went to Delta, and earned a high GPA. After that, she attended Fresno State because she wanted to be close to home. She graduated from Fresno State with honors, ultimately completing a masters degree. Then, she worked for two years as a teacher.

She decided that she did not want to stay in the classroom, and set the goal of earning a PhD in special education. Based upon her grades and resume, she was accepted to one of the nation’s most respected universities in the field of special education, The Ohio State University. Her PhD was fully-funded which meant the university paid all tuition, and gave her a monthly stipend of about $1,300 along with fully-paid for health insurance. Two important lessons from this are students should not knock attending a community college, and they should realize all grades matter because the pay-off might come in graduate school.

While in high school, child number two thought pharmacy sounded interesting. I spent many hours looking at the websites of pharmacy schools all across the country, researching what they offered in terms of financial scholarships and aid. When all was said and done, the most money was being offered by the Massachusetts College of Pharmacy and Health Sciences in Boston. It is one of the oldest and largest pharmacy universities in the country. My son liked the idea of going to school in the northeast part of the country. He applied and was accepted. He received nearly $100,000 in scholarships over the six years he spent at that college. This was about three to four times the amount that he would have received from a nearby school. The lesson here is to do a lot of your own research, looking at as many options as possible.

Like my first child, my third wanted to become a special education teacher. She had the highest GPA and SAT scores of the bunch. What is so interesting about her story is that we learned some schools are almost completely ignored by top-ranking students. One night, we attended a workshop hosted by Stanislaus State at Delta College.

The presenter told the audience the school had fully-funded academic scholarships that were unused. The deadline had passed to apply for the scholarships, but because they were unused, the school was still making them available. My daughter qualified for the scholarship and received four years of fully-paid tuition, room and board. What really boggled my mind was my daughter would have received only $2,000 per year in the University of California (UC) system. By opting for the California State University (CSU) system, her undergraduate degree was fully paid for. The lesson here is not to limit your choices by being an education snob. There are a lot of excellent schools in the CSU system, so research what they have to offer.