Tuesday, October 9, 2012

Ensure You Are Getting a Real Scholarship For Your Education

You are more than likely aware that you can offset if not totally cover the cost of tuition by taking by using the college scholarship and grant resources that are available to you. These programs are so popular with students because unlike the student loan, they are not required to pay them back after graduation.
As with anything though, even with the different types of financial aid that help college students continue their education, there have been a small but growing number of pretenders out there that have turned a struggling students quest for knowledge and their degree against them and offered them deals that were too good to be true by the students, but they applied anyway because of their drive to continue their education.
Sometimes they will say they have seminars or one on one counseling that will help you get as many easy college scholarships and grants as possible to pay for school. But when it came down to getting the actual help, there was actually a price tag involved.
Some of these operation have proved to be rather complex in the way they work. They will ask for a check for a certain amount of money saying it is to cover taxes or some other cost and then give you a check at the same time for a portion of what they promised. Your check will go through, but their check will bounce and before you realize it the whole operation has moved on and is nowhere to be found.
Knowing that, here are a few rules to keep in mind that should help prevent you from being taken advantage of:
If any program, be it a scholarship of grant for college requires you to pay for their services or to cover some type of cost, chances are that program is not going to be providing you with anything once they have your money in hand.
Unless it is official paperwork for a particular scholarship or grant, never ever provide them with information such as your social security number or bank account number. With that information at hand it is far too easy for someone to steal your identity and clear out your account.
Now it's not all of these programs bad news. In fact this is considered more of the exception then it is the norm. Just remember that any easy college scholarship or grant program that is really looking to help you pay for your education will never ask for any money from you at any time.
In fact the most personal information they might ask for is your name, date of birth and a email address they can keep in contact with you through to let you know what scholarships you can apply for as well as any updates that may be made.
So when it comes to signing up for easy college scholarships and grants, just keep your eyes open, use common sense and it won't be long before you'll be in class and getting a college degree.