If you see any kind of federal student loan (Direct, Stafford, or PLUS) listed in your college’s financial aid award package/letter, then you might be wondering: What are they? How do they work? We break it all down for you here.
While many scholarships have deadlines in the Fall/Winter, there are still many opportunities to apply for (and win!) scholarship awards over the summer.
The average college graduate comes away with a degree–and $29,000 of student loan debt, requiring an average monthly loan payment of $393. That ends up being a really high percentage of new graduates’ salaries, so perhaps it’s no surprise that, in 2018, 20% of student borrowers were behind with their payments. The problem is: once you’re behind, it can be even easier to get more behind.
We’re here to help you figure out how to not let that happen to you. How do student loans work? How do you know how much you can afford to borrow? How do you choose the right (cheapest, most flexible) loan? And how do you best manage the costs?
About one-third of college-bound high school seniors don’t fill out the FAFSA–and therefore miss out on an average of $14,000 per year in financial aid. Even more students don’t fill out their state financial aid forms–despite states granting students an average of $1000 in additional financial aid. Maybe it’s because high school students often don’t realize there’s an extra step beyond the FAFSA. That’s why we’re here to explain how the state financial aid process works.
In 2019, NACAC (the National Association of College Admission Counseling) invited us to deliver an online demo of our scholarship platform.
Back when I was a student applying for scholarships using those dreaded scholarship search engines, I noticed that scholarship applications often asked for the same information (name, email, class year, SAT score, etc.)–and sometimes even had the same essay prompt! So I’d dutifully, and monotonously, type in my personal information over and over again, and copy and paste the exact same 500-word essay across application platforms.
More than 5,000 high school counselors across the U.S. use Going Merry. Recently, we reached out to some of the most successful counselors–ones who’ve helped many scholarship student winners. We asked them for their top tips in this counselor’s guide to Going Merry.
For two years, we’ve built a platform to allow students, counselors, and parents an easy way to find scholarships they’re eligible for, filter through the noise, and apply to their favorites—all right from our platform. Now, over 200,000 students across 10,000 high schools use Going Merry.
More and more scholarships (like this Motorola Milestone one) allow you to submit short videos instead of personal essays. Check out the winning scholarship essay video entry from Violetta Spinazzola, about her best friend Jess:
We know you’re probably relaxing by the beach, not wanting to think about financing college tuition. We get it! Applying for scholarships is no walk in the park, but we’re making this easy for you with our scholarship search and application tool.