College scholarship ideas/advice?

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First year is free in Oklahoma. Have them at minimum knock out all their basics in a Jr. College, stay home and save money. Better Grades= more help. And they can take some credits in advanced classes in Highschool that will save some college fees.


And if people that do pay for the College, let them finance every penny of it till graduation. They can defer a year till payments start. Then go pay it off, if they become productive and stay the course to using their education. They get a wild ass idea to waste it, it is their dime to pay off. And as I have seen with my own two eyes, a Engineer Student, 10 years of College who’s Parents footed the bill. 3 weeks after Graduation he was killed. Had the Parents had him finance it and do as above. They would not have lost.
 

alank2

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Scholarships are a job in and of themselves. Most want a lot of work done to submit for them and this is no guarantee that they will come through. Start with the career counselors/scholarship advisors at the high school. They (scholarship givers) want to see community service if possible such as donating some time at the library, church, something else, etc. in addition to academic accomplishment. Work any specifics that you can that are interesting about your yound adult such as 1st generation college, 2nd generation college, etc. There are a ton of scholarships that are very specific to different students, parents being divorced, student has glasses, etc., so apply for anything that fits. Don't overlook community organizations like Elks, etc. All of it a huge daunting process. Applying to multiple colleges is a must, you don't know what each place will offer until the offer comes through. Start now, don't wait until spring to get on top of it.
 
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I would use college as a last resort. Look at other options first. College is a huge scam and waste of money inless they are getting most of it paid for. Even then theyll be subject to a lot of degeneracy
 
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This is going to sound crazy but I ain’t kidding, get your kids into bowling!

Millions of dollars are left on the table each year due to NCAA scholarship guidelines as there is not enough kids into bowling and the money goes untouched. My son went to Wichita State Bowling camp as the school is a 17 time National Champion in bowling of all things.

He was recruited by local colleges after winning the Oklahoma High School Solo tournament as a sophomore. All of the metro schools participate in the USBC bowling leagues that pay out scholarship money available to the participants until they reach the age of 21 I believe.

Good luck, we paid money to OU and OSU and know how expensive school is, everything helps and they don’t have to win a state title to get some of that scholarship money.
 
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Lots of great advice so far. It was a long time ago, but we helped Niece investigate scholarships around 20 years ago online. Some were crazy in the qualifications. One that I remember was that if the students GPA at HS graduation was a C+, you were in the running. A 4.0 disqualified one for that scholarship. Apparently, the fund was sponsored by a CEO of a very big corporation that graduated with a C+ average and made it big after college. He wanted to make college available to students that didn't excel at the top of the GPA.
There were others with odd qualifications but that one stood out.
 
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BTW, anyone with pointers to a "female friendly" career field that doesn't involve college, feel free to throw it out there. And by that, I don't mean one that requires living in Dallas or even OKC size places to be able to work. My daughter is leaning towards dental hygientist type work so far, even though with her love of math I've asked her about financial type work (retirement planning, banker, etc). My son says architecture is his plan, as of now...
 

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1) My son (sophomore) only has 1 working kidney, so probably out for military; TBH, the way the military gets treated by our .gov nowadays, I can't even make that a possibility (I spent 13 years in, I'm not naive)

2) I understand the whole "college is not necessary" ideas, I wholeheartedly agree with them even...but IMHO, girls/women have a whole lot tougher time making it in the world without picking a decent paying career, which for them usually involves some kind of schooling/degree. The one big thing I've made a point to impress upon them, esp her, is to not rely on ANYONE else for support, i.e. husband, wife, etc!

Thanks for all the input so far, keep it coming!
1) understandable, missing a kidney would make military a no go for sure, and I can completely understand your feelings about the military/gov/society relationship, I feel the same.

2) I dated a girl who’s mom would preach to her daughters “you better get your B.S. before you get your M.R.S., there’s no diamond diplomas in this household”. I think that’s a pretty good way to raise daughters. On a similar note, I know the idea of therapy is looked down upon around here as hippy liberal atheism, but, you may give it a chance. My wife works as a mental health counselor/therapist for mostly teenagers and young adults. She says one of her most common issues with teenagers and kids in college is that they end up being stressed about making such big decisions like career and college at such a young age. A therapist can give some outside input on how to get their thoughts in order, or possibly just some inspiration. My wife went to small, small town schools, got into college with some help from fafsa and such, and worked her way through college. Graduated with her masters 4 years after graduating out of high school, with very very little, practically negligible student debt. After working a few years with nonprofits, horrible cases, etc, she started her own practice 8 years ago, purchased a home, and is excelling in life, with or without me. It’s a story I look forward to telling our daughters one day, and the kind of story I imagine lots of young women could stand to hear and find inspiring. I imagine (as I’m not a dad and really don’t know what I’m talking about) Finding women like that, and exposing kids to such examples could really help with picking a direction in life. I think therapy can help with the stress and flood of emotions kids experience, and connecting with people of that caliber.
 
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BTW, anyone with pointers to a "female friendly" career field that doesn't involve college, feel free to throw it out there. And by that, I don't mean one that requires living in Dallas or even OKC size places to be able to work. My daughter is leaning towards dental hygientist type work so far, even though with her love of math I've asked her about financial type work (retirement planning, banker, etc). My son says architecture is his plan, as of now...
Dental Hygienist make pretty good money and good ones are in demand but it's kind of a trendy job thing right now with lots of applicants looking for that work that could drive down the salary with a large number of applicants?
RN Nurses, especially the travelling nurses are making 6 figures currently right out of school may be an option. We have ran on to both male and female traveling nurses in our travels at RV parks. They aren't lacking for income from our discussions.
Even with good math skills, accounting jobs pay good but most accountants don't go far into companies without advanced degrees. My wife spent 44 years as an accountant without a college degree, but those with degrees eventually went past her in the pay scale. Not that they were better at their job than her but that piece of paper was a requirement for the higher positions. She typically had to train them for a long time to take those higher positions.
 

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