My Daughter Has Been Accepted into ____@____.com College Station. She Is at the Top 10% - Greenville,TX

There is s book (it's huge) you can get at Barnes and Noble. Has applications and info on every scholarship available. Might want to look i to it. So much free money out there. You just have to be a go-getter.

Did you fill out the FASFA form? I was at a presentation and it was said that a lot of families refuse to fill out the form and every year at least 2 million in grant money goes unclaimed. It might be too late to fill out the form but you can give it a try.

You can also try for scholarships. Are there scholarships offered at her school? They usually know about organizations that are offering them. Sometimes they may have the applicant write an essay some will give a scholorship if you are working on a certain major. Good luck!!

Have you not been preparing for her college education along the way? I don't mean to sound rude but when we had our daughter 21 years ago we opened a college fund because we knew she would go to college.

Scholarships, grants and work study alone won't cut it. You may have to take a loan.

Fill out the fafsa paperwork and talk to the financial aid office. This type of info is stressed especially during high school. Where were you when those meetings were held?

Our high school counseling office has a separate office within it only for students searching and applying for scholarships and all off the scholarships available.

Plans should have been in place to at least give her a good start to college.

Maybe A&M is not the right fit for her if it's financially unattainable. Try going to a community college 2 years to get basics out of the way, save $ then transfer.

My personal belief is that I brought her into the world and its my job to educate her and get her out of college with no debt.

Before I get bashed.... I simply stated my personal opinion and how we managed it. I realize each family has different circumstances.

How did she do on her SAT/ACT? My son is a senior and he received a scholarship for his ACT score that will pay for most of his college. We saved enough to pay for the rest, but he will work to pay for other expenses (car, insurance, etc.). My son is still applying for scholarships all the time and will continue to do so throughout college to try to get all of it paid for.

Your daughter needs to apply for as many scholarships she can. So much money goes unclaimed. I teach high school AP classes and help students with this process all the time. I tell them to apply for every scholarship that requires them to write an essay because so many students are too lazy to apply for those. They don't want to write the essays. This increases their chances of winning those scholarships. It takes work to get the money, but it's worth it.

Congratulations to your daughter! Now tell her to get busy working for the money. :)

Without a loan? And you haven't saved for it? Ummm, I don't see another way.

If she's already accepted you should have received financial aid information. If you can't afford for her to go to school, she may need to work her way through school or you take on an extra job.

But most people either save or take loans...your child's college education is your expense. Just as my three will be my expense.

You should have received her financial aid package by now which includes the Pell grant. So either you didn't fill out the FAFSA or you don't qualify and will either have to tighten your budget or take out loans.

Just wondering why you think you are so special that you shouldn't have to take out loans like most other people? I can't wait to take out huge loans to pay for college!! said no one, ever! You do it because you have to. Her school ranking actually means nothing. If she is in the top 10% and only carries a 3.0 she isn't going to get many scholarships.

Um...it's a little (a lot actually) late in the game to be figuring out how you're going to finance college. Acceptance letters have come out, financial aid packages have come out, and kids need to start sending in their deposits to secure their spots at school for the fall.

What was your big picture plan? Why can't she take out loans? How much is your funding gap? If you can give a little more info on what your situation is and what makes it unique, we might be able to give better info.

At this point, assuming you filled out the FAFSA on time, you have received the info from the school on whatever merit-based aid she qualifies for along with work-study and need-based aid. The difference between their offer and the full price is yours to cover. Most students cover that gap with loans, money earned over the summer, money pulled from a 529 account, and money that parents pay directly but if she's really on top of her game, she can still apply for various scholarships. A lot of scholarship deadlines for next year have already come and gone, but there are some out there for which she can still apply, but she'll have to do the research and get the applications in.

Very few merit scholarships are available and they are highly competitive. Need-based funding should have been part of the acceptance materials that were sent to your daughter. It is possible that your income is too high to receive this needs-based funding (very common). Even though we have been saving for our children's college needs, we know that based on our incomes that our kids are not going to receive any financial aid. We have decided that both of our kids are going to attend a community college for 2 years and then transfer to a public university. Many think this is a route of failure and also-rans, but I actually run a transfer honors program out our community college. It is a strenuous program and every year 80-90 % of our students transfer to either Berkeley of UCLA. Our students often get merit-based scholarships when they transfer and they do very well academically. Most do not acquire debt. It is the best-kep secret in higher education. I wish politicians who are promising free college would figure this and support our programs more.

You (and she) should be working with her high school school counselor and college/career center. They can help her fill out financial aid forms and apply for scholarships. You should also contact her college financial aid department to see if there's any assistance available there.
If she doesn't qualify for aid or scholarships then you'll have to do what everyone else does, either pay for it yourself or take out loans.

Well, a loan is always an option - but we consider it a last resort option.
Our son's in 11th grade, straight A's STEM student, top %5 of his class and we're working on this stuff now.
He'll be applying for scholarships/grants this summer, as well as working an internship or two, and visiting various college campuses.
There are financial aid sites that can help her find scholarships and grants.
She should be working with her guidance counselor and every high school has information about how to apply.
You're going to have to learn the particulars (deadlines, etc) about filling out the FAFSA.
https://fafsa.ed.gov/
You fill this out EVERY YEAR she's going to college.

You can certainly help her - but SHE'S got to do the leg work on this.
For many scholarships and grants she'll have to write essays to apply.
If she's smart, she can coordinate a bit on this - one essay might be good towards several applications.

Of course, there's always the old fashioned way of earning money.
She can get a job - wait tables, work fast food, work a register at the supermarket, walk dogs, baby sit, mow lawns (anyone can use a riding mower), etc.
A work study job on campus while she's in school will be good too.
If possible, have her look for a job in the colleges financial aid office.
I did a work study job there when I was in college - and I LOVED IT!
Plus any little grant my boss found that she thought would apply to me she let me know about.
$50 here and there - it added up.

Congratulations!
She's a smart girl!
Now she needs to hustle her bustle and shift it into high gear!

welcome to mamapedia!!

are you asking complete strangers to fund your child's college education??

Talk with the school. That would be the first place to go. If you own your home?? Take out equity if you are hell bent on your child not having student loans for her education. Or she can get a job.

If she's at the top 10%?? She might have been offered a scholarship. You need to talk to the school.

What exactly is your question? Are you looking for available scholarships? Grants to apply for? Start with her academic counselor at both the highschool and the college. Good luck to her.

You had better get on the stick. It's really late to be trying to figure this out. Call the college's financial aid department and talk to them.

Did they offer her a scholarship? If not, and you can't afford this, perhaps she should be going to a school that has offered her a scholarship.

We can't always have what we want, you know.

Why are you not contacting Texas A&M for financial help? That would be the sane thing to do instead of asking strangers to pay for your daughter's education.

Your daughter's high school counselor should be available to you for advice. Every college and university has a Financial Assistance office. Contact them.

Great question for your school counselor!

A Pell grant is need based aid, it is not merit aid, so her ranking in her graduating class will not determine her getting one. By now, you should have filled out FAFSA and be awaiting an awards letter from the college. In addition to whatever you have saved and your daughter has saved for her college education, she should be applying for private scholarships and working part time (full time in summers) to help with college costs.
My kids' high school had a financial aid night for parents of juniors and seniors, to get information about options for paying for college, and there were other seminars in our local communities about that as well.
Your post does not mention whether you have savings that you are just hoping to supplement with other aid, or if you are expecting your daughter to receive a full ride with no loan-based aid (unrealistic).
Good luck.

Others have covered the financial aid issues here in detail, and I will just add (as B also notes): Check on the possibility of "work-study" jobs. These are jobs the college sets up as a form of aid -- you work at a job (usually but not always on campus) and what you earn goes to your college bills. It's only a supplement to other aid but can help. It probably works very differently from college to college so check it out. I did it in college and actually ended up with excellent work experience I could add to my resume (one job was at an off-campus information center, and the other was helping a professor coordinate research documents).

As for loans, you may have to just bite the bullet and do it if you have not already been working on college funding and she's due to go to school this fall. But listen to Diane B -- there are scams out there offering college aid, so only go for what counselors or the university tell you are legitimate.

Your best bet will be the financial aid department at the college, and the guidance counselor at her high school. You can also start looking up scholarships online. There are hundreds and hundreds, but the deadlines for many have passed.

https://www.scholarships.com/financial-aid/college-schola...

There's a link to a list. Just google "college scholarships" or "college scholarships in Texas". If your daughter belongs to any organizations (or if you do), look those up.

And I know it's awful, but complete that FAFSA. It can be frustrating. I filled ours out for our son, and it kept getting refused due to some line not being filled out, even though we completed that line, and the financial aid adviser at the college helped us get it through eventually.

Have her start filling out those papers!

Fill out the FASFA application and see what she qualifies for. We didn't want our daughter to graduate with debt or take out loans either so she is going to a state school which is much more affordable even with private school scholarships.

As others have said, you are really late in the game here - this should have been part of the discussions/thought processes when she started looking at schools. Whether she's in the top 10% or not is pretty irrelevant - usually kids at the same college are fairly equal in their standing.

So, like every other parent, you go on line and fill out the FAFSA. You can start now and save your work, even if you don't have your 2015 taxes quite finished. You can update when you have that. You also go through all the information sent from the college and dig out the financial aid information, or you contact the financial aid office today (or go on line, which is faster). Hardly anyone can afford college, so Financial Aid offices are there to help guide you - and you'll find that most loans/scholarships are need-based rather than merit-based. Some schools have funds available in different categories to help ensure diversity: there may be money for arts majors that is separate from engineering majors, for example. But the school will help you piece it together. They can also be helpful advisors when it comes to federal aid.

Federal aid includes all kinds of things - Pell Grants, Staffords and so on. Put the aid in your daughter's name even if you think you will be helping her pay them off. Loan payment amounts are based on the child's earning power, now yours. Interest rates are much lower than standard loans for other things.

What I would NOT do is respond to random "scholarship aid" junk mail, emails or on line offers and so on. Most are scams with very high fees or penalties.

Fill out the FAFSA form online. It will use your income tax information.

Go to the school and ask the undergrad adviser to help your daughter fill out forms for scholarships.

Find out that if YOUR income is too high YOU have to pay. If YOUR income is low enough it's YOU that has to take out the loan, not her.

I have a friend whose adult daughter had to have a co-signer for her student loans. She was married and had a child. They requested her mother and father's income tax information. Told her she was still young enough that they were required to file financial aid and loan apps based on her parents income. Strangest situation ever.