For those of you who haven’t noticed, it’s 2009. Many of us consider ourselves to live in societies of relative freedom, tolerance and acceptance — where people of all colors and creeds can live and work side by side in harmony.

On June 8^th this year, the far-right political group, the British National Party (BNP) won two seats in the European Parliament. No big whoop, yeah? What are two seats in an organization of that size? When the Party’s immigration policies include offering financial incentives and political pressure to persuade legal immigrants to leave Britain and return to their countries of origin — no matter how long they have been settled in Britain — and their membership excludes people that are not of direct white, British descent, then I think there is some serious cause for concern.

Nick Griffin, the leader of the BNP, is an incredibly outspoken individual with some seriously scary points of view. In a recent television interview about immigration from South Saharan Africa, Griffin said a way of tackling the problem would be to sink the ships bringing the immigrants. Another comment that jumped out was Griffin’s musings about Third World Aid, when he stated he did not believe Britain should be “obliged to subsidise the incompetence and corruption of Third World states by supplying them with financial aid.” This kind of open hatred is seriously troublesome in the early 21^st century.

Most controversially, members of the BNP have publicly expressed incredibly controversial views regarding the Holocaust. While most members may not openly engage in Holocaust denial, they have made insane claims regarding the numbers of Jews killed in the atrocities. Griffin has previously made comments such as;

“I am well aware that orthodox opinion is that six million Jews were gassed and cremated or turned into soup and lampshades. I have reached the conclusion that the ‘extermination’ tale is a mixture of Allied wartime propaganda, extremely profitable lie, and latter witch-hysteria.”

“There is no doubt that hundreds, probably thousands of Jews were shot to death in Eastern Europe, because they were rightly or wrongly seen as communists or potential partisan supporters. That was awful. But this nonsense about gas chambers is exposed as a total lie”

However, the population of the UK are not just sitting back and doing nothing to protest against the unacceptable views of this far-right party. The Hope Not Hate campaign, fronted by Nick Lowles is at the forefront of the crusade against the BNP, and social networking sites such as Facebook have provided the campaign with a platform to encourage the public to show their support. The Hope Not Hate group has over 18,500 members, and the 1,000,000 United Against the BNP group has just under 600,000 members on Facebook alone.

Watch the now infamous “sink the ships” interview. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/8141069.stm

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All right, it’s true; I’ve already lied to you.  There is no such thing as free money.  Searching for scholarships is going to cost you time and energy in no small amounts. Realistically, if you are truly serious about finding as much scholarship money as possible, you are looking at about 50-60 hours of work, not to mention additional time for stellar essays and applications.  I know what you’re thinking, that’s 50-60 hours extracted from Friday night movies, Saturday afternoons with the girls, and after school phone calls to your BF. Compare and contrast though to the alternative: Tens of thousands of hours post-graduation working to pay off the ridiculous interest rates on your student loans that can take ten, fifteen plus years to pay off. Suddenly searching for scholarships sounds like a dream vacation, doesn’t it? And lucky for you, I care about your social life and have done some of the legwork for you.

What kinds of scholarships are there?
•    College Specific: usually offered as part of your financial package from the school you are attending, doesn’t typically have an application separate from your admissions application.

• Athletic Scholarships: Highly competitive, so make sure you stay on top of this one. Check out the website for the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA).  Also check out www.collegesportsscholarships.com, a website founded by a college athlete and his dad, offering lots of free information and advice.
• Academic Awards: Merit based, talk to the financial aid office of your prospective school and ask if there are additional forms to fill out.

•    Private Organizations

• Corporations: Offer scholarships in order to attract or retain employees. Students often forget to examine this resource which means they are less competitive and often even go to waste due to lack of applicants. Look into companies you may wish to work with after graduating, check local newspaper listings and your local chamber of commerce, and ask your parents if their companies offer any opportunities.
• Religious Organizations: If you belong to a church or temple, they may have educational funds available.
• Unions: Check out the AFL-CIO website www.aflcio.org and search the words “college scholarship.”

•    High School and School District: Your high school or school district often has scholarships for graduating seniors
•    Military: Think carefully about this option.  While providing excellent educational opportunities and financing, these are awarded in return for tours of duty.
•    Other: This cute little miscellaneous category is actually the one that offers the most opportunities for money, and some of the more fun assignments to earn them. This is wear search engines on the ol’ interweb come into play, and where you’re going to go craziest checking little online boxes. However, these are the sites you should check out first:

• www.finaid.com (fast, free, bonus of email notifications and a tracker to help remind you of approaching due dates, don’t be distracted by all the advertisements)
• www.petersons.com (grants)
• www.ducktapeclub.com (good search engine and words of insight)
• www.ja.org (Junior Achievement Organization. Lots of scholarships, but not so user-friendly.)
• www.scholarships.com (search engine with some bonus organizing tools)

Don’t forget to document what scholarships you find on each website so that you don’t waste more time by tracking them down all over again. Another old-timey but useful search engine is a published scholarship directory. I know books are totally outdated, but sometimes just flipping through the pages will turn you on to something a key word wouldn’t connect on a website. Your school guidance counselor probably has one of these or a notebook they’ve compiled themselves. Ask them or check your local library.

Good luck as you start out on your journey to college financing. In the meanwhile, shoot any questions, feedback, website critiques, etc. to diane@iamthatgirl.com.

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So you’ve exhausted every possible lead for a scholarship, but there is still a looming gap of zeros in your education costs. You’re ready to bite the bullet and sign your name in blood to interest rates and payment plans. But what about this recession everyone’s talking about? What about that $1.6 billion loss Sallie Mae posted last quarter? Who can you trust to still give you a fair interest rate?

It’s a slippery slope and my first advice to anyone contemplating major loans right now, is buyer beware! We’ve all learned valuable lessons in the last year when it comes to adjustable interest rates. Make sure you ask lots of questions and have a complete understanding of your terms of agreement.  This is your financial life for the next 10 years; it’s not to be taken lightly.

With that admonishment out of the way, here are your jumping off points:

Subsidized and Unsubsidized: These words are bandied about endlessly, but what do they mean? In a nutshell, subsidized means the government is going to pay the interest on your loans while you’re in school, and probably for up to 6 months after you graduate. Unsubsidized means you are responsible for the interest immediately. Usually you have the option of either beginning payments on the interest immediately, or deferring them up to 6 months after graduation when you begin payments on the principle.

Federal Loans: These are the bad boys that you’re looking for.  They have fixed interest rates and are typically subsidized. You apply for these loans by filling out the FAFSA (Free Application for Federal Student Aid). There are mainly three different kinds of loans, the Perkins Loan, the Stafford Loan, and the PLUS Loan.

• Perkins: You’ll have to prove exceptional financial need, but it’s perfect for independent students. Typically it’s a 5% fixed interest rate and it can grant you up to $20,000 for undergraduate, and up to $40,000 combined undergraduate and graduate. The best bonus is that these loans could be cancelled if you go in to fields like nursing or law enforcement, volunteer for the Peace Corps. or go on to teach in a low-income school.

• Stafford: Be cautious of the Stafford because it can be either subsidized OR unsubsidized. If your family can prove less than $50,000 of gross income per year you can be approved for the subsidized version. Otherwise they may offer you the unsubsidized loan. The interest rates on this loan are currently higher than the Perkins, around 6%, but by 2011 it should be a mere 3.4% due to a government program.

• PLUS: (Parent Loan for Undergraduate Students) This is a loan designed to cover the gap between the financial aid packet that a school offers you and what you actually need, including books and room and board. It’s deceiving in its name, because you can also apply for it if you are a graduate or professional student. Interest rates are around 8.5% and vary depending who is offering, and based on your credit check. You must apply separately from the FAFSA. Look for banks and credit unions that offer federal education loans.

Private Loans: These are your riskier loans due to the fact there are no government- backed securities.  Despite private loans being a whopping 20% of the student loan market, they are not only going to be harder to find and obtain, but interest rates can vary from 8% to a terrifying 19%. These are loans from banks and credit unions that are not part of a federal student loan program, and repayment will probably begin immediately.

IATG Quick Tips:

•    Don’t procrastinate. Fill out that FAFSA ASAP!
•    Talk to your financial aid office! They can point you in the direction of your best private loan options if federal loans don’t come through.
•    Find a co-signer who can increase your credit score, it could help you out with more money and a lower interest rate.
•    Don’t get discouraged, the money is out there and you will find it.

Questions, comments, and concerns: send them my way at diane@iamthatgirl.com

photo by bill mcbain

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If you’re searching for college financing, whether for a BA, MA, etc., you may suffer giant stress headaches, erratic sleep and night sweats. Fear not. These are normal symptoms.  It all seems like an endless sea of boxes to check and forms to fill out and enough fine print to fill a bottomless pit.  I’d rather clean my toilet, scrub the grout between the tiles of my shower, or do anything other than reading the dry repetitive material about student loans and scholarships.

I asked myself how on earth a high school student is supposed to navigate these rocky waters and make wise financial decisions that will affect them for the next 15-20 years of their lives. How are teenagers supposed to wrap their minds around loans and interest rates on tens of thousands of dollars when they’ve never had anything other than a minimum wage job? It seems socially irresponsible to be merrily waving the next generation down the drain of debt.

I sound depressingly pessimistic; I know. That’s how I felt when I first googled the word “scholarship” and started sifting through the search results. I left a message for my editor, ready to cry “uncle!” The websites seemed so interested in gathering information about me that I was certain they would sell my name to every mailing list imaginable. They were difficult to navigate and reduced me to describing myself in means of ethnicities and grade point averages. I was frustrated and discouraged by the fact that I didn’t seem to possess any qualities worth receiving money as each search offered alarmingly slim leads.

Before my editor called me back and before I officially threw in the towel, a divine beam of light shone down on me. I came upon www.scholarshiphelp.org. I swear the angels started singing as I gleaned a brand new understanding of grants, financial aid, and scholarships written in a comprehensible way and on a website that is simple to navigate. This is where you should begin your search in order to help you understand the basics and beyond. (They are willing to guide you in everything from searching for schools to writing your essays.)

What this experience illuminated for me was that this is not a topic meant to fit into a 500 word article. Rather, this is the gigantic elephant in the room that every student is ignoring because it happens to be a very boring elephant. Unfortunately, it’s also a very important elephant so we all better get used to its monotonous voice and confusing legal terms and figure out how to be friends. I’m pledging to you, readers, to tackle this subject with you and address as many questions and concerns about this process as humanly possible. In other words, there is much more to come on this topic. (Thank goodness it is finally becoming more enjoyable than cleaning my toilet.)

If you have any tips, websites recommendations, questions, concerns, or just need to vent about how you don’t even want to go to college anymore because you can’t figure out how to pay for it, shoot me an email at Diane@iamthatgirl.com.

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