We all know that college isn't free; or is it? The cost of college may be the only thing holding you back from pursuing a college education. You may think that your parents don't have enough money to send you to college, or your parents might not offer you any help at all. You may have to face the financial burdens of college alone, making a college education seem about as realistic as winning the lottery. Don't give up that easily!

The greatest things in life are the ones that are hard to accomplish. A college education can be the greatest thing in your life, but the costs don't have to make it the hardest thing to accomplish.

Did you know that you could get a college education at a University for free? You read that absolutely right! You can get a college education for free. We're not talking about your parents paying for it, we are talking about grants and scholarships paying for it. More and more grants and scholarships have become available over the past few years where anybody is eligible to apply. The hardest part of trying to pay for college has become searching for these grants and scholarships. Even if grants and scholarships do not pay for your college education in full you can always find the rest of the money through the university's financial aid program, or through low interest student loans. At SMB College Life we want to turn your dreams of college into a reality by giving you the information that you need to find a solution.

The most important factor in the amount of financial help that you will receive for college is your parents. During the college planning porcess you will need to fill out a form called the FAFSA form. The link I just provided takes you directly to the official government website for filling our the FAFSA form. There are many imitation websites out there today that try to steal your credit information by making you believ you are filling out the official FAFSA form. Follow a general rule of thumb; if the web address does not end in .gov then it's probably not the official FAFSA website.

As mentioned previously, your parents are the most important factor in the amount of financial aid you receive because the government will first look at your parents level of income. If your parents combined income is relatively low than this is very beneficial to the amount of financial aid you'll receive. However, if your parents combined income is average then you might not receive much financial aid help. This doesn't help you as the college student because what if your parents' income is ranked "too high" by the government, yet your parents cannot afford to assist you in paying for college? You, as the college student, will be stuck with the financial burden yourself and little or no financial help from the governement. Is this system fair? Probably not, but that is the way it works.

If you are a student that doesn't qualify for financial aid from the government and your parents cannot afford to assist you then you will have to look into alternative means to pay for college. Scholarships are a great way to pay for college because they offer you money for college that you never have to pay back. The last alternative to paying for college is through student loans. Don't be scared of students loans because over 75% of all college students have taken students loans to pay for college. Your parents can be a big help with your student loans and can help you to save thousands to tens of thousands of dollars just by cosigning your loan. When a parent cosigns your student loan you will receive an interest rate that is significantly lower than if you applied without a cosigner. The reason for this is that our parents have an established credit history, over many years while your credit history may have started very recently.

The cost of tuition may be deceiving!

Once you have collected information about a few colleges of interest and filled out the same chart for each individual college you can compare them to find the college that will best help you obtain the career you desire. Although you might choose to eliminate a college from the list because of tuition costs you might be making a big mistake. Colleges with higher tuitions often have more financial aid available than those with tuitions that are marginally less. What does this mean? It means that you may be able to attend an Ivy League college for the same cost as a State College! A general example of this is provided by SMB College Life:

An Ivy League College may offer an advanced degree with a tuition in the range of $40,000 per year while a State College offers a comparable degree, but less advanced, for $15,000 per year. You may immediately think to settle for an average education offered by the State College for a lot less money, when you could've gotten a more advanced education for the Ivy League College for about the same cost. The following are only estimated costs which include tuition, room and board, and textbooks for an out-of-state undergraduate student. Please refer to the official website of each college for actual costs.

We can better visualize tuition costs by looking at the following data collected from an Ivy League College and a State College:

MIT (Massachusetts Institution of Technology) tuition costs approximately $48,000 per year but offers an AVERAGE financial aid amount of $25,000 per student, per year, making a final tuition cost of: $48,000 - $25,000 = $23,000 per year, making an education at MIT very affordable for the average prospective student.

Pennsylvania State University tuition costs about $33,600 per year and while they may only offer, on average, a total of $10,000 per student in financial aid per year. The total cost for a Penn State Education then becomes:
$33,600 - $10,000 = $23,600 per year.

As it turns out, a State College education could actually cost you more than an Ivy League education. Of course the Ivy League college will have a lot higher acceptance requirements than a State College, but and Ivy League college will have a more prestigious reputation than a State College simply because of the top experts they employ and the innovative research they conduct. This is only one example of two different colleges. There are obviously millions of different comparisons and scenarios that could be covered to prove the latter. This doesn't mean that a State College is a bad choice when looking for colleges; this is not the point we are trying to make at all. The point is that the cost of tuition should rank very low when differentiating between your competing colleges.

Calculating Total College Costs

Prior to submitting your application you want to make certain that you have all of the facts in order. You should be aware of ALL the costs involved and any expectations that the college may have. One year's attendance in a college or university can cost anywhere between $5,000 to $50,000 so you need to know all of the costs involved. The following is an example cost analysis including all the most or all of the things that a student may pay for:

1. One year's tuition cost.......................................................$12,345.00
2. One person's yearly apartment cost ....................................$ 5040.00
3. Cost of groceries for one person.........................................$ 1440.00
4. Textbook costs for one year...............................................$ 1000.00
   (We can help you save money on textbooks! Click here)
5. Spending allowance for one year.........................................$2080.00

Total cost for one year.........................................................$ 21,905

As you can see there is more to the cost of college per year than the tuition itself. You should make yourself aware of all the expenses that comes with a year's attendance in college. Be sure to include all of the items listed in the college cost analysis above and add in any additional cost that you can think of encountering over the course of one year. You will need to use this total in later calculating the money that you will need for college. For item 5 listed above you should think of an amount of money that you would feel comfortable spending in one week and multiply this by the number of weeks in one academic year (anywhere between 25 and 45 weeks).

Best grant and scholarship books to purchase

These two books are among the best resources for finding and applying for grants. They list grants by state, major of interest, and more in about 1000+ pages.

Purchase on of the following books for more information on paying for college

Other Resources and free downloads:

Financial Aid Scholarships Student Loans College Search College Cost Calculator The Common College Application

The Official US Department of Education's Student Funding PDF for 2008-09