Staggering your scholarships

This advice comes a day later than initially promised, but here it is. If you've been researching scholarships and you've got a lot lined up, you might be feeling pretty overwhelmed. Don't let that stop you! Here are some easy ways to organize getting things done.

First, ask yourself the following questions about all of the scholarships you want to spend time doing:
1) Which are the most complicated?
2) Which are coming up the soonest?

Organize all the scholarships by when their deadlines are, chronologically. It may help you to print them out and organize them visually, or create notecards and do the same thing - on each card, write the requirements (like an essay or letter of recommendation).

Now is when you're going to have to multitask. Start chipping away - slowly - at the bigger scholarships that are do the earliest. Get your letters of recommendation requested, start drafting essays, figure out if you can use parts of one scholarship essay for multiple scholarship essays. While you're waiting for letters to come in, or taking a break, do as many of the smaller, easier scholarships as possible regardless of when they're due. The more of those little ones you do, and the earlier you turn them in, the higher your chances will be.

Ideally, you'll want to be finished with your Big Scholarship Essays about two weeks early. This will give you time to chase down any straggling letters of recommendation, and take your essay down to the Writing Center to have it proof-read!

Any other questions? Need tips on how to ask for a letter of recommendation? Feel free to comment here, or email any of us, and we'll answer on the blog!

Scholarship tips!

Many of you are already thinking about next semester, and ways to cut costs. First, congratulations on your foresight! This is a great time of year to be thinking about that and as long as you act on those thoughts it puts you far ahead of the game. Keep it up and next fall will be a breeze. 

So you’ve got your loans, and you’ve got your institutional funds, and depending on how your FAFSA worked out you might have some federal and state aid, but there’s still a gap you’ve got to cover. The first place your brain ought to go to is more scholarships. Now, the school doesn’t have any additional funds beyond what your department might have for their yearly evaluations, but this is where outside scholarships come in. In a previous post we talked about where to start your outside scholarship search. Check out the links there and get looking!

This week we’ll talk about how to tell if what you’re looking at is real. As always, you can email any scholarship offers you’re not sure about to staff in the financial aid office and we’ll be more than happy to have a look for you, but here’s a quick primer so you guys know what we look for when we determine whether or not you should consider that scholarship an option.

1) Who’s offering the scholarship? 

There are a wide variety of groups who offer scholarships, but they tend to fall into one of two categories: Not-for-Profits/Foundations  and Individuals/Private Companies. Generally speaking, a scholarship that comes from a foundation tends to have fewer tricky terms and conditions, as they’re not trying to sell a product directly, and therefore tend to be a little safer. A scholarship that comes from a private company or individual – such as a law firm or a store – tends to have more terms and conditions that apply to whether or not they can use you and your submission for sales, with or without your permission, and as brand endorsement. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing, but they can be more complicated and we really suggest looking carefully at their rules before you apply.

2) What are the terms and conditions? 

Do they acquire ownership of whatever you submit? Can they use your name and photo to endorse their product? Do they plan on displaying your submission? When do they send the funds to the school? Are you required to go to any events if you win? The answers to these questions are typically not indicative of scams, but can sometimes sound fishy or entail things you may not want. Make sure you read them carefully. If any terms and conditions ever mention fees, read those sections carefully and keep in mind that these fees could be signs of a scam.

3) Are applicants required to pay anything?

Sometimes scholarships will have an application fee. This is generally for bigger events, like competitions or portfolio reviews, or in instances where they have to pay judges to read scripts, and generally in all cases that are more like competitions than scholarships. Fees like that – typically around $25 – are fine. However, you should never be required to purchase anything or pay an unreasonable sum of money. Generally speaking, any scholarship that requires a purchase or large fee to enter is not a legitimate scholarship.

4) What information do they ask for on the application? 

Scholarships tend to ask you for your name, age, and address. Sometimes they’ll ask you for your family’s financial situation if one of their conditions is financial need, but generally the scholarship will want you to send copies of your financial aid letter or a paper that the financial aid office fills out. They should never ask you for your social security number, credit card, or bank account information. Never fill these sections out and if you see a scholarship with them, please send it to us so we can warn others! Please ask us if you’re ever unsure about questions the scholarship application is asking.

Got a couple dozen scholarships you want to apply for? Overwhelmed by a variety of deadlines? No problem! Check back in Thursday for tips on how to approach the task.

Budgeting Tips: Learn to Cook

You might be asking yourselves, why is Financial Aid posting about cooking? Beyond wanting you guys to be as healthy as possible while you're in school, here's why - your food purchases make up a large chunk of your living expenses, and we care about your financial know-how as much as we do about what food you're fueling yourself with, so in order to get you guys on the right financial track we're throwing out some usable life lessons! This is one of those posts that’ll be more useful for those of you currently living on your own. So real quick, just to start us off, here’s some advice for everybody still in the dorms or living at home; learn to cook before you get out on your own. No joke, this is a skill that can potentially save you hundreds of dollars a month, and it’s something you can pretty much learn for free (thanks, Youtube). And if everything you’re cooking is really bland and gross-tasting, here’s another tip: use more herbs and spices. Most recipes are written to appeal to the greatest number of people, which means they’re pretty bland. As a general rule of thumb, double the spices in any given recipe, provided you like that particular flavor, and your food is going to start tasting a lot better or at the very least, a lot more interesting. 

Okay, now back to those of you currently in charge of your own kitchens. If your fridge is anything like mine was when I was living downtown and going to Cornish, beyond being shared by four to five people, it’s probably only got a few things in it and none of them are particularly healthy or geared towards providing multiple meals. Sometimes we got really fancy and had milk in our fridge. Other than that, mostly weird snacks we got on sale. One of the things we’re going to be doing on this blog is providing you with some basic financial education and life skills that high school no longer provides and one of those things is learning how to shop and cook on a budget – which can be particularly helpful around the holidays. So without any further ado, here’s some tips and tricks for you to start practicing over the next month.

Schedule one day a week to cook

Time is a massive issue. I won’t treat you like you’re special and tell you it’s ever not going to be a massive issue; you’re going to be just as busy when you’ve got a job as you are right now as a student. If you can’t make time now to feed yourself, you won’t be able to make time later either, unless you start practicing. It seems overwhelming at first, but if you actually budget your time it’s going to start feeling a lot more manageable. 

My food technique during school was to buy massive amounts of boxed red beans and rice and related foods whenever they were on sale and cook as it was necessary, or survive pretty much exclusively on Wheat Thins and half-sandwiches. This is not something I would recommend. Also, much like spending little bits of money here and there, spending little bits of time per week actually ends up meaning you’re spending a lot more time per week than if you just set aside two hours on (for example) Sunday and cooked a whole ton of food.

Generally speaking you have about five days before your food becomes questionable, and probably slightly longer especially if your fridge is particularly cold. So here’s what you do – find a couple recipes that make multiple servings and are full of ingredients like cheap vegetables, whole grains, and cheap filler like tomato paste, get your ingredients, and on Sunday set aside two hours and just make all of the food. Freeze some, throw some in the fridge, and look now you’ve got dinners you just have to microwave all week, no problem. No need to pay for dinner for basically the whole rest of the week.  

Buy a crock pot

Step in to any thrift store that sells home goods and you’re probably going to see a crock pot. This means you’ll be able to find a crock pot for under ten bucks, but if not seriously just go to Target and get a new one for about $40. Now, what the heck is a crock pot.

Well. It’s a pot. And you plug a warming base in to the wall, put the pot in it, and let food cook for a really long time without needing to leave your stove on. And by really long time, I mean you can cook food for like, twelve hours. Why would you want to cook food for twelve hours? Because it tastes really, really good.

 Make some great chili with a can of beans, some briefly cooked cheap ground beef, and a bunch of diced vegetables that produces eight servings for under twelve bucks for the whole meal (that is $1.50 for about a cup and a half of food per serving that will last you for five-to-eight days - think about how much more expensive the cafeteria is here and decide if the hour you’ll spend chopping vegetables and briefly cooking some beef and the three hours you’ll spend not paying attention to the crock pot as it gently bubbles your food into deliciousness while you do homework or play Fallout 4 or binge watch Peep Show are worth it) You can do the same thing with chicken noodle soup (throw whole boneless chunks of chicken in there, if it cooks for long enough it’ll shred itself) and basically also any other kind of soup. It’s a great way to multitask because you don’t have to stir, or really even watch it. You can do literally anything else while days’ worth of meals are being created. It’s the ultimate in both multitasking, time efficiency, and being super lazy. How often do you get to do all three.

Buy in bulk, and pay more up front

Buy in bulk. Buy quick-oats in bulk, buy spices in bulk, buy peanut butter in bulk. I don't mean Costco bulk, I mean bulk as in from the bulk section. If you walk into a store, and there’s a bulk section, I promise you that 99.999999% of the time the stuff in the bulk section is going to be way cheaper than the stuff that’s prepackaged. It scares you off with big up-front prices, like spices being $20 per pound. Do you know how much your standard jar of spices weighs? Not that much. This weekend I bought about eight ounces of Aleppo pepper for $5, which is a ton of Aleppo pepper figuratively speaking. This will last me for at least a year. Meanwhile, a two ounce prepackaged jar of Aleppo costs about $10. So basically if it’s available in the bulk section, get it from the bulk section.

Sometimes things will cost you more up front and you’ll want to avoid them because of it. Don’t do this. Save your money for one big grocery shopping trip and buy everything you need right then and there. Using that chili I mentioned as an example – sure, the beef is going to look expensive (tip, get it as lean as possible and get the stuff that’s marked for sell-by-end-of-day, as long as you plan to cook it that day – that’ll all make it cheaper) and you’ll need to get multiple cans of beans and the vegetables will all say terrifying things like “$4.00 per pound”, but it’s not that bad. Plus tax you can make that aforementioned meal for $15, maybe closer to $21 if you’re buying spices for the first time. But then you never need to buy spices again, and spending $15 to make several meals is way, way more cost-effective than spending $4+tax every time you want to get a cheap, quick fix from the café. Another fun shopping tip, in Washington your premade food is taxed - your fresh food products are not.

Pay attention to the price per ounces

Sometimes things seem cheap when they’re really not. My insanely thrifty roommate during Junior and Senior year taught me this trick – look at the price per ounce on the sales tag. Right by where the price label and bar code are, in every store, in the lower left or right hand corner is a little note that tells you how much that thing costs per ounce. It makes, way, way more sense to spend more money on an item that has better value than one that is cheaper up front but has less of the actual product in it.

Produce isn’t that expensive

It might say apples are $2 a pound, but weigh your apples. If you pick the right ones that’s like, three apples – it’s really not that expensive. It’s less expensive than candy or coffee or any of the things we buy throughout the day without thinking about it. So either find a new excuse not to buy produce, or rejoice and actually start weighing your produce at the store so you can buy things and stay within your budget!

Those are your intro tips to cooking when you’re not making much, or any, money. To help you guys out with this crucial life skill, we’ll be posting totally affordable easy to make recipes occasionally!  

Gift ideas

The holidays can be an expensive time of the year. Over the next few weeks we’ll be posting some advice about how to make it through without totally emptying your wallet - tips that have helped me out through several years as a poor college student and one as a poor college grad. To start us off, check out this list of ideas from Northstar! Being as many of you are artists some of these ideas are no-brainers for you (I know I've been drawing people their holiday gifts for years) but there are some good things on this list. Theirs is prettier, but for the sake of not making you click a ton of links and adding my own flair, here are their suggestions:

1. Be artistic: instead of pulling out the plastic for another mindless purchase, pull out the glue stick. You'll have fun and the recipient will appreciate your attention to detail. 
2. Be musical: inexpensive and thoughtful, sharing music is better than ever. Use apps like nana or Ujam to make and share your own music or create a playlist and invite friends on the musx app.
3. Write a love letter. This gift will last decades longer than anything you'll find at the mall. 
4. Write a heart-felt thank you note instead of a regular holiday card. 
5. Take a friend out for less with sites like livingsocial.com, groupon.com, or restaurant.com. 
6. If you can get outside, do it! Take a friend out on a clear night (they do happen in Washington) and go stargazing. 
7. Be blatantly endearing. Giving a friend oranges with a note that says "Orange you glad we're friends" is only acceptable at the holidays. Unless you're the kind of person who can pull it off all year 'round, in which case totally go for it all the time. 
8. Throw a sampling of single serving warm drinks into a thrift-store-find mug (hint: a little spice in some cheap hot chocolate makes for some gourmet-level gifts on the cheap). 
9. Feed stomachs! $10 gets you a share of a goat through Heifer International (heifer.org). They'll find a family who will enjoy its milk and cheese and you'll give a gift that keeps on giving! 
10. Take some time for yourself. Seriously. Put yourself first for a few minutes each day with your favorite stress-free activity, no matter how busy you are.

What are some of your holiday season money concerns? Any ideas you’d like to share with your classmates? Let us know!

Scams!

College students are more at risk of identity theft than any other group. If another party gets a hold of your social security number, name, address, and birth date, they can use this information to file taxes fraudulently, set up credit cards in your name and put you in debt, and completely destroy your credit which will make it impossible to qualify for decent apartment rentals, future loans, and in some cases even jobs. One way that these third parties get this information is through fake scholarships – never, ever give your social security number or bank account information to any scholarship foundation, and never participate in any scholarship program that wants you to pay, with the exception of the occasional portfolio review fee (sorry, artists). And remember, the first “F” in FAFSA stands for “free”. You never need to pay to get help with the FAFSA, or any of your federal student loans. 

There are a ton of scams out there, but you’re going to start seeing a lot more of one in particular: student debt relief. Because of recent news regarding for-profit colleges, these scams are becoming more and more common. You’ll see 1-800 numbers for companies that claim to be able to reduce your student loan debt completely, asking you to call to talk about your loans, and companies that claim to be able to get rid of your debt for several hundred dollars in return. But keep this in mind:

Any real information regarding debt relief will come directly from one of three sources – the financial aid office, your loan servicer, or the federal government. 

There are several websites out there that appear to be tailored to specific schools, but if they were real we would tell you about them. Further investigation will reveal that these websites have ads tailored to many different schools. If you see something you think is suspicious, but you’re not sure, let us know about it – email us at any time to find out if these offers are legitimate, even after you graduate. Want to know more about the top four warning signs that what you're looking at might be a scam? Check out this link.

For federal loans, your debt can not be contested or forgiven unless you qualify for forgiveness under one of several repayment plans (which usually also means you’ve been making payments for about ten years or more), or you die. In rare cases, when schools lose accreditation or, in the case of the for-profit schools that recently closed, are revealed to be scams that do not produce degrees, the federal government will forgive your debt. However, this news will come directly from your loan servicer. It’s important to stay in contact with them for this reason. Any offers to reduce federal debt that come from a third party – somebody who is not an official Cornish representative, your loan servicer, or the federal government – are not real. 

Keep in mind, if a company promises to clear your debt, legally they have to clear a certain percentage first before they take any payment from you. If they ask for money up-front, it’s a sign that they’re not really there to help you. If you read their fine print, especially if you have federal loans, you’ll see what you’re really paying them several hundred dollars to do is file just a little paperwork that you could do yourself with help from your servicer for free. Your loan servicer is there to help you with your loans, for free. There are several repayment programs that exist to help you if you’re not making enough money to afford to make your monthly payments, and a simple phone call to them will result in help, so you never need to pay a third party. 

Do you have questions about student loans? Concerns about what life is like once repayment starts? Have you seen any of these scams? Let us know by commenting below or sending an email to hereforyou@cornish.edu.