Having recently assisted my son with college enrollment, I have become familiar with the wonderful world of tuition and financial aid, and have decided to share some of my findings with the students we have in the AO community. I have no doubt that I haven’t covered everything, but I hope what I have found proves to be of assistance. Good luck, students!!

http://www.finaid.com/ is a very well rounded site that covers aid, scholarships, military programs, plus several handy tools to aid the prospective college student.

http://www.fastweb.com/ is a scholarship search service that has a college directory and also provides links to online college applications.

http://www.fafsa.ed.gov/ is the gateway to federal aid for college and even has a feature that lets you track the status of your application.

http://www.collegenet.com/ is an online guide for colleges, universities, graduate programs and financial aid. Sign up for a shot at a $10,000 scholarship given away annually.

http://www.collegeview.com/ covers all the bases on financial aid and also provides extensive profiles of most accredited colleges and universities.

http://www.usnews.com/usnews/edu/dollars/dshome.htm may not be purely a financial aid site, but it is a great source of information concerning financial aid and getting the most bang for your educational buck.

http://www.mapping-your-future.org/ The URL says it all. College and career planning strategies abound here.

http://mach25.collegenet.com/cgi-bin/M25/index Wow…a gateway to 1.6 billion financial aid dollars just waiting to be used. Has a cool keyword search feature too.

http://www.1stopaid.com/ is another good site with information on preparing for college and obtaining financial aid

There are tons of these sites out there if you want to ‘google’ your way through. I found these to be excellent sites that provided sound information that was beneficial with my personal search. I hope that some of you college age (or soon-to-be) members can get some use out of these, I know I did. Aspire to greatness!!