AAR42 - College Scholarships 101

0:00Andrew Sather:There is just no downside to applying. The worst they can say is, nope, you're not going to get it, and that's all that comes from it. But just going out there and throwing a ton of spaghetti at the wall is going to get you some opportunities more than likely, and that is going to make a huge difference for the future for you and or for your family.

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3:57Andrew Sather:good day everyone and welcome back to at any rate my name is evan wright and we are here to help you make sustainable financial changes without breaking a sweat today i'm as always or at least as sometimes pleased to welcome back my trusted expert with all things scholarships today

4:12Evan Raidt:andrew sather how you doing uh-oh uh not an expert in scholarships i'm just gonna try to survive today where we go you're the expert yeah so today we're going to be as that spoiler implied we're

4:25Andrew Sather:going to be covering scholarships specifically college scholarships as well as some similar kinds of financial aid that go along with scholarships but i want to be very clear at the top of this we're not going to be covering any specific scholarships we're definitely not affiliated with any specific scholarships or anything like that there's far too many opportunities out there. There's a ton of geographical limitations. There's time limitations, major specific limitations. There's a ton of stuff around scholarships that makes them very specific and restricted to specific people. So we're just kind of covering the basics of what scholarships are, how helpful they can be, and a lot of our personal experience with them as well, because I think that'll be a really good dose of reality to go along with this.

5:06Andrew Sather:So just want to start off at the top with scholarships versus fellowships versus grants. These are three very similar kinds of financial aid. And from the, you know, from the front viewpoint, they can seem very similar. They can seem like the same thing even, but they definitely have, uh, have differences among them. Andrew, do you want to kind of cover what those three are and what their differences are or what's same about them?

5:31Evan Raidt:Sure. So, um, scholarships thing is something you apply for and, um, They usually consider your application and they'll grant a certain number of them. Fellowship, I'm not 100 % sure on. Grants are something that I've had experience with. And those can be related to a financial need or a specific area of study and research. So both of these are free money, which is awesome. I don't know how much applying there is for grants. but I know when I was going to college which was a while ago this was when Facebook was like hot so that tells you oh yeah so back then you could get a grant by just going through the standard financial aid process called FAFSA and then based on where you were on FAFSA and where you thought your expenses would be sometimes they would offer you a grant and sometimes not so the difference in that case between the grant and the scholarship which i didn't apply for scholarships like you did and that was a mistake um but the the scholarship was more like like you would apply for and you'd have to take the effort to whereas the grant was just kind of awarded if if you qualified basically

6:57Andrew Sather:from my point of view at least those are that's a very common experience to have with kind of differentiating the two and just to add in fellowships fellowships are closer to grants and that they usually focus on a specific area of study or something like that and they also tend to go towards professionals so people already in the field or researchers who are again diving deep into a specific area of study or research but all three of them like you mentioned they're just free money that's the best thing about all these is that their financial aid to help you get education or help you get into a field or something like that for essentially free.

7:32Andrew Sather:It's money you're given to help you get that education and you don't have to pay it back. It's not a loan that you have to pay back or pay interest on or anything like that. As long as it's used properly, meaning used on the education or materials or room and board that it's intended to be used on, then you're not going to have to pay any taxes on it. It's all tax advantage, financial aid, and it's really easy to work with and get help that way. So if you wanted to kind of dive into where, how to find scholarship options, the first option is FAFSA. We're going to talk a ton about is, is the best option.

8:09Andrew Sather:Andrew mentioned that. And when you apply for the FAFSA, yeah, you fill out kind of your, your parents or your family's financial situation. You fill out some, some school related history, some transcripts, that sort of stuff. And that opens you up that that's kind of an initial portal to open you up to a ton, hundreds of different opportunities, financial opportunities that could cover anything from scholarships or grants as well. But that's the first most important best thing to do because it's, it's super easy. It's quick. And there's, there's literally no downside to just filling it out. I did actually have a friend, I won't name who it was, who declined to fill out the FAFSA one year.

8:49Andrew Sather:I believe that it was, it was because he said his dad was putting it off, but his dad said he was putting it off i'm not going to argue which one of them whose fault it was for not filling it out but i did i did know someone who didn't fill it out and just missed out on a ton of financial aid that year in college that they had gotten the previous years and they got the next year solely because they didn't fill it out and often with this kind of situation we're talking about thousands and thousands of dollars to to cover tuition to maybe help with room and board to cover materials like even new computers or books or just anything you need to get through college these this kind of financial aid can help cover for you and that's that's a lot of money to just leave let it go down the drain just because you or your dad put off filling something like that out that was completely you know accessible to you to to fill out with no real downside but the way i kind of think about it when you when you go apply for scholarships or you fill out the fast.

9:48Andrew Sather:It really is a situation of just throwing a ton of spaghetti at the wall and seeing what sticks. And that is completely okay. The mindset that I don't want you to have for scholarships, or if you're helping your child go through this kind of a process, the mindset I don't want them to have is only applying to things that they feel confident they'll get, or has a large number of people that they're giving the grant out to or something like that. though those are great to apply to as well it's also great to apply to niche stuff that you know is very competitive or has high requirements or something like that there is just no downside to applying the worst the worst they can say is nope you're not going to get it and that's that's all that comes from it but just going out there and throwing a ton of spaghetti at the wall is going to get you some opportunities more than likely and that is going to make a huge difference for the future for you and or for your family and i know that for me from my experience i'll ask andrew how he found his opportunities but for me how i saw sought out a ton of opportunities uh not many of which turned into anything but again that's okay there's only a few things stuck to the wall is looking out for some kind of a counselor or mentor if you're in high school looking for some kind of a guidance counselor to help you look for opportunities or if you're outside of school you maybe took a gap here or something like that there are definitely mentors out there or even going to the college itself and asking them, hey, what kind of opportunities are you guys aware of that could help me get into this institution?

11:16Andrew Sather:They're the kinds of people that are aware of what opportunities are out there, what good portals there are for you to apply through, and what are going to be the real big needle movers to help you get in to maybe cover 75 % or 100 % of tuition or some really big ticket item like that. And again, they'll know about niche opportunities that say, oh, well, you did this community service in this area and there's a grant that specifically is trying to encourage people to do that area of community service and so you're going to be able to apply for that and a lot of other people wouldn't be able to that's definitely one of the best ways to go about it but Andrew do you remember how you heard about your opportunities or how you sought them out I think I just did

11:57Evan Raidt:the FAFSA because everybody else around me was doing it um I actually this is really embarrassing

12:07Evan Raidt:I wouldn't have applied for colleges in time if my friends around me weren't doing it also. I was just completely head in the sand around all of that process. I just didn't have the resources or somebody ahead of me. I'm the oldest in my family, three younger siblings. So it's just, yeah, it came up on me and looking back, it would have been cool to have what you're talking about. Just to double click on like throwing spaghetti at the wall. I've talked to somebody who told me his daughter, like basically got college paid for through different scholarships and just made it just a part of their everyday routine.

12:54Evan Raidt:like, hey, we're going to spend this amount of time applying for scholarships every day. And what's interesting about them is what you're saying about no downsides to applying. The scholarships where you might think there's zero chance I get this, if you're thinking that, chances are a lot of other people are thinking that too. And these scholarships, the money needs to be spent. so if you can somehow find an angle I think it's worth the effort and a lot of people just kind of like your friend they put it off they put it off it's hard to be so future focused or so long term minded that you see the impact of this but hopefully with everybody who listens to this show understands compound interest and understands how these little advantages in the beginning can make for huge advantages down the line.

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14:00Evan Raidt:you want to not saying that that's the only thing you need to do, but it definitely helps a lot. And it's just another way that you can really set yourself up for success. Yeah.

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17:09Andrew Sather:It's kind of, uh, it's kind of surprising how we frame different financial opportunities very, very differently, regardless of what their dollar amount is. And what I mean by that is somebody tells you, Oh, you know, I cut out streaming for my life. Then you're, you think, Oh wow, that's, that's awesome. That's going to save you a ton of money. I mean, that's going to save you hundreds of dollars a year and everything. And you know, you found other ways to do it or other forms of entertainment or whatever. that's going to save you a ton of money congratulations and then you tell them or you try to tell your child or you know whatever the situation is if we apply for this fafsa you know they they might give you six grand per uh maybe not per semester per year to cover tuition or something like that and it's uh you know but it's an application and i don't even know if i'll get it or what we'll exactly get or you know the estimate isn't always accurate blah blah but i mean that's thousands of dollars in a single year but we can get so excited about these other things that are good things to do, not poo-pooing them at all, but we're talking about other things that might only quote unquote be into hundreds or maybe a single thousand dollars saved or, you know, a raise or bonus at work.

18:15Andrew Sather:That's that same amount. We get really excited about those, I guess, because there may be a more immediate, more of a guarantee, whatever it is, more tangible, because instead of saving on something, we're sort of getting direct cash to our bank account. And so it's really easy to visualize, but doing something like we're talking about today of just applying to the FAFSA or just picking out a handful of scholarships and applying to those that can be a sign even more money than these other opportunities and like you were talking about with compound interest the earlier you do these kinds of things talking about high school graduation time or again if you take a gap year or two and then you're going to college or something like that that is so early on in life that you are setting yourself up or you're helping your child set themselves up for a drastically different financial future than they would have had access to otherwise but I also kind of want to touch back on the the point that you brought up of people putting off applying to this kind of stuff unless other people around them are doing it what do you think that parents for example could do to try and motivate their kids to apply to this and kind of help them understand the gravity of the situation obviously without putting too much stress on them but helping push them and help them realize that this is doable for them it won't be a ton of work and the outcome will be huge or could be huge

19:35Evan Raidt:it's so hard uh i have i have a 13 year old and then i have really young babies so i haven't dealt with the the the mid kind of later teenage stage yet but i know it's coming so I struggle with I've been a parent long enough to know that like parenting is so different in the different stages so it's honestly it's really hard maybe we can be somewhat helpful by let's say you have a friend who is younger or even if you put yourself back in that area of life where like you have a friend who's just kind of dragging their feet what would you say to them and maybe that can that can kind of frame how somebody could try to approach talking to uh one of their teenage children i guess i i would frame it i i think that one of the biggest focuses when at that stage in life when you're kind of late in high

20:43Andrew Sather:school you're applying to college and that sort of stuff and thinking about what major you want to get into, what degree you would want to get, what kind of a job that would get you. One of the big focuses is, okay, what field is that going to put you into? And what does that field pay? That's definitely a big thing. Even if at that age, we don't entirely understand what that number means or what that would get you access to or anything like that. At least we see numbers from job to job, field to field, years of experience to years of experience. And I would try and frame it in that point of view, because that's a point of view that they're used to having or at least used to hearing about and so if we frame a scholarship as this is the this is enough money that over the four years that you're in college or even more if you get a master's or something like that or two years if you um if you get your associates over multiple years of this kinds of savings or this kind of uh after after multiple years of the money that a scholarship or grant or fellowship or something like that could get you access to that is a drastic difference between you know one field of of work and and another so you look at you know being in the medical field or something is paying a lot more than being in art or just kind of using random examples okay one does pay a lot more than the other but just by applying to this kind of stuff or just filling out this kind of stuff you could make the jump from one field to another for multiple years just because you fill out this application and uh i think that framing it in that kind of mindset would help them see the tangible difference because i definitely think they're too young to try and explain even you know one will help you get a house sooner or one will help you stress less about money or live in an area you want to live in i think those kinds of things are still too far removed from the decisions they'll make anytime soon so framing it as the difference between different fields right after graduation and this will help you cover up that you know financial difference or income difference or help get ahead in that way or whatever it is is uh at least something that they could help or that they are more likely to

22:53Evan Raidt:be able to understand it makes it makes sense to me um i wonder if like tying it into the things they're naturally curious and interested about, passionate about. I know it's hard. I personally knew I wanted to be an engineer for college because I knew it made a lot of money and my uncle did it. So I was like, I'm down. But I know there's also other people in my family who weren't so sure about what they wanted to do when they grew up, kind of an idea. and so just thinking of how I would have tried to help them because I didn't do that as much as I should have as older or older influence I wonder if just trying to tie it into like oh you're interested in this you think this could be cool to learn about well maybe having a scholarship would help you like this this and this maybe that resonates maybe for other kids it's just like talking to a brick wall I don't know, but it could be maybe something to try.

24:02Andrew Sather:Yeah, I definitely think that's a fair idea. And speaking of parents, you know, pushing their kids for certain things, I want to focus on that. To me, the second most important thing after applying to something like the FAFSA, that's again, a great opportunity. It's kind of a mass application. Apply in one place and it'll mass apply you to a ton of opportunities, financial opportunities. the second most important thing you can do to get access to all of these opportunities is just keeping up with your grades keeping good grades doing well in school and i'm not talking about you know having to hit perfect straight a's or getting a hundreds on every single exam which side note that was always something that especially in hindsight but even at the time is very funny is that the difference between the 96 and the 94 or whatever is a huge deal but then in hindsight it's well it's all a's you know who really cares and then in college even if you get c's it's c's get degrees is what people say but regardless all these specific grades matter so much in the moment but just keeping up with good grades getting good experience is is the second most important thing that you can do in a way that you can stand out and earn these kinds of awards a lot of these have specific requirements for for gpas that you have to keep up with uh classes that you have to have taken that sort of stuff and just having that good baseline of hey i did well in school i'm smart i can learn things essentially is all you're saying that that's that's a great fundamental to to give yourself so i would focus on that heavily and and emphasize that that's one

25:34Evan Raidt:of the biggest things you can do to differentiate yourself so how did you um take us through your scholarship experience if you don't mind how did you earn a scholarship and did grades play a part in that yeah so so the the scholarships that i got access to it was it was two different ones

25:56Andrew Sather:that uh that got me through college one was the provost scholarship through ucf and this scholarship was something that i actually didn't apply to i didn't even know it was coming until i think i got a letter one day and i freaked the f out but it was just a scholarship solely focused around academic achievement. So it was focused on grades. It was focused on, you know, stuff like AP classes, which is like some lower level college classes that you take in high school, focused on AP classes, grades as a whole, a little bit of community service as well on the side. And just again, kind of that good overall picture of a good academic student sort of earned me access to the Provost Scholarship.

26:36Andrew Sather:And the Provost Scholarship by itself was able to cover, I think it was like ballpark 60 or 70 percent of my tuition through college so that that already just from that one scholarship again just by doing well in school not even requiring an application was a massive financial help and already put me in a very different financial situation during college as well as after college and then the second one that i got access to is something that we have in florida and i'm sure other states have something similar is the bright future scholarship and that That's something that you do have to apply to, and that one has basically lower academic requirements and a little bit more community service focus.

27:17Andrew Sather:So it's kind of a more well-rounded requirement where you don't have to be some academic elite or whatever. You just have to have done well in school, do some community service, and that's much more accessible to a much wider range of people. and that was those two combined were actually able to completely cover my tuition as well as have some left over as cash back which was definitely a little surreal in college and i definitely realized that at the time as well that it was i was extremely thankful and grateful to be able to at the at the beginning i think it was yeah at the beginning of every semester i would get you know a relatively small amount of money i think it was like four hundred dollars or something like that but i would get like 400 cash back from all this and that was absolutely fantastic and again even more impactfully when i graduated college i was able to leave college with zero debt for college whatsoever so that was that that just kind of started me off on a on a perfectly clean slate after graduation where now i can go get a job go earn money and whatever money I earn is my money.

28:23Andrew Sather:It's not immediately being sunk, you know, back into something. And, and all of this was for a bachelor's as well, but I definitely know that there are a lot of people out there that will, you know, maybe they go get a master's, maybe they go to a much more prestigious, expensive school or something like that. And cause my debt, even if I hadn't paid for anything, would have turned into tens of thousands of dollars, but there are definitely a lot of people out there that end up with hundreds of thousands of dollars in debt. And so that even more emphasis should definitely be put on doing these kinds of applications.