The worst kept secret about college: it’s ridiculously expensive. It’s
only too bad that the international community of institutions of higher
learning didn’t pull a page from Socrates’s lesson plan book. The great
Athenian philosopher hated the Sophists of his time because they
charged their pupils money while Socrates provided instruction for
free. He believed that wisdom should not come at a price but should
instead be available to everyone instead of just the wealthy.
This is why no one in his or her right mind can call Socrates a capitalist.
Colleges and universities worldwide are undoubtedly vigorously engaged
in the capitalist game. Tuition costs rise every single year and
students are forced to take out larger and larger loans to cope with
the hikes. In addition to this, the availability of scholarships and
even student loans is dwindling, a fact that oftentimes affects where a
student goes to school. Your college education can cost anywhere from
$5,000 to $40,000 per year. Chances are that you won’t be able to match
that amount in terms of the scholarships and grants you collect.
Good thing you had that piggy bank when you were little, right?
Putting the “Fun” in “Funds”…Or Maybe Not
So what can you do to help pay for the exorbitant cost of college?
You can always sign up with the NBA, play for a couple years and then
opt out and go to school; you could make it big as a rapper, produce a
few tracks about ‘the hood,’ go to school, and then come back and
produce a few more tracks about Disneyland being the perfect example of
Baudrillard’s hyper-real (Baudr-izzle knew how to make the real hyper /
He made Slavoj Zizek look like a babe in a diaper); you could join the
ROTC just like the nice recruiter who visited your chemistry class told
you to; or you could develop a working model for a reformed educational
system that rejects the credit caps Andrew Carnegie put in place in
favor of a more effective alternative, and then become rich and
powerful and implement that system.
Or you could start by working hard in high school.
That’s right: you can actually start saving up for college in the 9th
grade – that is, when you’re not being called ‘freshie’ and having
pennies pitched at your face. That can take up a lot of time in your
daily schedule.
If you are a college-bound student, chances are that you will extend
yourself beyond the paltry subject requirements that your school has
set in place for graduation. Some schools require one year of history,
two of math, two of English, and two of science in order to receive a
high school diploma. If you are at all serious about being admitted
entrance to an institution of higher learning, you will take care to
make your transcript look much more impressive.
Depending on the tier of the school you want to attend, you will be
taking four years of math, four years of science, four years of a
foreign language, three to four years of history, and so on according
to how many periods are scheduled into one school day. Hopefully, these
subject tracks will culminate in Advanced Placement courses.
Advanced Placement courses are an excellent way to save money and time
in college, and we highly recommend them for serious, hard-working
college-bound students. Advanced Placement courses are honors courses
and are usually weighted an extra GPA point. That is, if you do B level
work in that class, you receive an A (even though a B appears on your
transcript; the A is used to calculate grade-point-average, or GPA); if
you do C level work in that class, you receive a B; if you do C level
work in that class, you receive a B; and if you do D or F level work in
that class, you’re straight out of luck.
In May of every year, the College Board administers the Advanced
Placement exams. These are the exams that you will be preparing for in
your AP classes. They consist of multiple-choice questions and essay
responses and are long and very intense and rigorous examinations that
cost roughly $80 each and take several hours to administer. Students
and schools typically receive scores in late June or July. The total
score is out of 5.
Most universities across the nation view AP courses as equivalent to
introductory college courses and depending on what you score on the
exams, they are willing to waive those courses once you actually begin
your undergraduate career. The most selective schools require 5’s in
the AP subject exam in order to wave the course requirement in that
same subject. Others generally require 4’s or 5’s, and most used to
accept 3’s but as the admissions process becomes more and more
selective, 3’s are losing value.
You might take your first AP exam in the 10th or 11th grade, depending
on how your school plans out the subject track. You can always study
for a subject exam on your own, pay the fee, and have the school
administer it for you or send you somewhere nearby where the exam is
being administered. And if you do not do well on a particular subject
exam and wish to take it again, you can do so the next year.
The wonderful thing about AP exams is that a good score counts as
actual college credit. If you score a 5 in Calculus, for example, you
can get out of the math requirement at your college/university.
Personally, I was awarded 21.5 credits by my college for my scores on
the AP exams (I took AP English Literature, AP English Language, AP US
History, AP Biology, AP Calculus AB, and AP Psychology and scored a 5,
5, 5, 4, 4, and 3, respectively). Because of my scores, I placed out of
all of my general education classes across the board. Not only did I
save an entire year and graduate in three years instead of four (or
sometimes five depending on how late you declare your major or whether
or not you change majors as a significant amount of college students
do), but I also saved more than $21,000 dollars in tuition. My freshman
year of college, I paid exactly $136 for all three trimesters combined.
And all of this was possible because I scored high in all my classes, was able to move on to AP exams, and scored well on those.
In addition to this, a lot of colleges and universities grant
scholarships to students that do consistently well throughout high
school. For this reason, it is very important not to be carefree about
your GPA in 9th grade, as many students sadly are. If you do well
throughout all four years, you might have a nice chunk of change to
show for it. Remember how when you were little, you could go to Chuck
E. Cheese, show them your report card and get a bunch of free tokens?
This is so much better.
So far, we’ve got AP exams and a great GPA as good ways to fund our
college ride, but there’s another important part of this equation: the
Preliminary Scholastic Aptitude Test.
It even sounds scary, doesn’t it?
The Preliminary Scholastic Aptitude Test is known as the PSAT and it
can help you save some money. That’s because the PSAT has a cute little
nickname: NMSQT (that’s pronounced Nim-Squat, or so we’ve been told).
NMSQT stands for the National Merit Scholarship Qualifying Test. That’s
right – Scholarship!
The PSAT/NMSQT is out of a total of 240 points and is composed of
multiple-choice questions in Math, English, and Writing (which is a lot
like the English section). Just like on the SAT and AP, you are docked
¼ of a point for every incorrect answer. Each state has a cut off point
each year (it varies yearly) and if you score higher than that cut off
point, you qualify for the National Merit Scholarship.
Once you qualify, you go through a selection process along with all the
other students that qualified nationwide. Candidates are narrowed down
further and further and the ones who remain in the process receive the
money in the end. Personally, I scored 214 on the exam, which wasn’t a
great score except for the fact that the cut off point in Illinois that
year was 208, about six points lower than it had been the year before.
After a lengthy selection process (eat your heart out, Charles Darwin),
I emerged as a National Merit finalist and was awarded roughly $6,000
per school year. The fact that I was a National Merit Finalist, an AP
Scholar with Distinction, and a good student throughout high school
also increased the amount of my President’s Scholarship, which knocked
off a little more than half of my yearly tuition.
But you don’t necessarily have to subject yourself to test after test
after test to get out of the red as far as paying for college goes.
There’s a fun way to do it, too, and we have a feeling that after all
this doom-and-gloom regarding test scores, it’s time to play up the fun
aspect a bit – if for nothing else than to keep you from gouging out
your eyes with that No. 2 pencil to be used on all standardized exams.
Your school offers the possibility for membership in a wide variety of
clubs, sports, and organizations. You’ve got your German Club, your
Islamic Awareness Club, your football and cross country team, and your
4-H or National Honor Society, for example. All these clubs are
sponsored by your school and led by a member of the faculty, and most
of them are great ways to score some dough for college while doing
something that you enjoy.
Take advantage of these opportunities to find something that you are
interested in or passionate about and excelling within the construct of
that club or organization. If you enjoy writing and are a member of the
school newspaper, inquire about the presence of a Quill & Scroll
Society at your school. This is an honors society for writers and not
only does it look excellent on a college application, but the Quill
& Scroll Society also offers scholarships. If you are a member of a
sports team, chances are that there are scholarships available if you
are a good athlete. If you are a member of the Islamic Awareness club,
for example, you might be able to find sponsors at the masjid or among
local Islamic businessmen and organizations that are willing to give
out scholarships. The National Honor Society is also a great way to
beef up that transcript and do some volunteer work for the community –
and it offers scholarship money, too. Also, you might make some good
contacts among the organizations on the service list, and one of those
organizations might have scholarships available for students that put
in a certain amount of hours filing medical charts or packing food for
low-income seniors, for example.
There are tons of opportunities for scholarships at your high school,
especially in the case of these clubs and organizations formed for
students just like you that share a common interest and excel therein.
Aside from this, visit your Guidance Office regularly and inquire about
scholarships being given out by businesses in the community. AAA, for
example, gives out a scholarship every single year, as do many other
businesses. There might even be some small local businesses in your
area specifically that have their own scholarships available. Even $25
helps – it can pay off half of a textbook, perhaps. Do not be picky
about what scholarship you apply for; apply to as many as you possibly
can given your grades, interests, and hours of community service.
Still need some cash? (Don’t we all?) Think about your skills. What are
you good at? What are your hobbies? What sports do you play? What are
your future career goals? Are you an ethnic minority? Do you have a
parent that served in the armed, air, or naval forces?
These are just some of the questions you’ll have to answer if you visit
www.fastweb.com, a simply invaluable resource for prospective
undergraduate and graduate students alike. Upon registering (it’s quick
and free!) with the site, you will create a profile providing answers
to questions like those above. FastWeb will then compile a list of
scholarships from all sorts of providers based on your interests,
qualifications, past work experience, ethnic group, etc.
Some scholarships will just require you to add your name, email, and
home address to a drawing. Others will require a short essay or a long
essay on a given topic usually listed on the provider’s website. Still
other scholarships will ask for a personal video of a stage production,
a work of art, a produced track of music, an original film, or a
manuscript for a science fiction novel (the Scientologists are
particularly interested; the L. Ron Hubbard Society offers a pretty
penny for such a thing). You will be able to pick and choose based on
amount, due date, and your ability to provide the material being
requested. This is a great website to visit over summer break or winter
vacation, when you have plenty of time to devote to research, browsing,
and writing.
Though it is very difficult to pay for college, it is not impossible
especially with all the present opportunities for scholarships and
grants. These opportunities are all around you; you just have to be
willing to spend some time finding them and working for them. If you do
well in school, score high on standardized examinations, and browse an
extensive compilation of websites to find out who’s offering how much,
you should be able to cross off a significant amount from your yearly
tuition statement.
And then you’ll be able to join all the other college graduates in the
job market and find a job suited for your skills in your particular
field of practice. And in your free time, you could always rap about
Baudrillard. (We put a bunch of bad guys in prison / To hide the fact
that we’re all wearing orange jumpsuits / This hyper-reality we’ve made
is our own private dungeon / The loss of meaning makes it hard to put
down roots.)
Instant Grammy! And all because you were able to finance your stay at an undergraduate institution.
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