How to Pay for College

0:01 This program is designed to provide general information with regards to the subject matters covered. This information is given with the understanding that neither the hosts, guests, sponsors, or station are engaged in rendering any specific and personal medical, financial, legal counseling, professional service, or any advice. You should seek the services of competent professionals before applying or trying any suggested ideas. Hello, and thank you for tuning in to a Sharp Outlook on P four HD Radio and talk or TV. I am Angela Sharp, your host our arm chair discussions with industry experts will give you the steps, tools and information to be successful in business and to prepare you to be your best self. Hello, I'm Angela Sharp, and welcome to a Sharp Outlook. Do you have a student that will be graduating next year in June or maybe May, or do you have one that's in the eleventh grade that might be soon graduating. Do they have a dream to go to college and do you have the financing to be able to help them to go to college. Well, that's what we're going to talk about today, how to pay for college so that your student can go to college and live their dream. What are the main sources

1:31 students and families can use to fund college tuition, and how can you maximize financial aid For many the financial aid process begins by completing the free application for Federal student aid, but there are a lot of different options that are out there, and our guest today is very knowledgeable about that and he's going to help us be able to discover all the different ways to be able to get funding an aid for your student's college tuition, how to apply for scholarships, how to win scholarships, win does get started, how to get started, and choosing an affordable college. Students and families use a variety of sources to pay for college, the tuition, personal income savings, scholarships, grants, and loans. The specific combinations of funding sources varies by family income, and the student's academic record is really important and the type of institution that they're wanting to attend.

2:40 I want to bring doctor Stephen Jones to our show so that we can talk about this. We had doctor Jones on back in July talking about how your student can study and be able to get better grades and be able to pass their tech. Well, today this is the now that they're passing the test, and memorizing their information and ready to go to college. Now we need to inform you parents how to help your student be able to get into college as we know. Doctor Stephen Jones is the Associate Dean for Student in College of Engineering and Villanova University. Is a succesful author, speaker, and a college readiness and student retention expert. Doctor Jones is currently the president of SAJ Publishing. Is also the associat Dean of Student and Strategic Programs in the College of Engineering.

3:42 Doctor Jones WelCom sharp out, I guess I could still say good morning to everybody. I think, Yeah, this is a wonderful topic. It's always good to talk about how to pay for college for me because I want to try to send as many college students of college as possible, and it is possible. One of the things that I think it should be clear that this whole idea of funding college doesn't start when you get to high school. That it should start. Early, and when your child is born, you should have thoughts about how I'm going to pay for college, where I'm going to invest. There are different resources that you can pay put money into an account starting that early, and it'll accumulate over time so that by the time we get to high school, you have some pool of funding to think about. And I think this is important because a lot of times, especially in the African American community, when kids get into middle school, children get into middle school, the parents start telling them, I don't have money to send you to college. I don't know how I'm going to do this, and so just by sending that message, it can delay a child's interest in even going further.

4:57 So one of the things I would like to say today is to the parents, don't tell tell your child that you don't have enough money. There are over six thousand colleges in the United States, both four year colleges and two year colleges, and we just need to find and find the right one for you, the right one that fits you and your income situation, so that you can be successful at this goal. And I think hopefully it'll start today. Yes, absolutely, yeah. And that's what's so important about that, because, like you said, of a child, here's you tell them, I'm not going to have the money to send you to college. It's just going to well, it's gonna they're gonna have a downer, and it's going to make them difficult to even continue to focus or even be energized, because that's you know, stepping into their dream and saying you're not going to be able to have that dream.

5:50 You're not going to be able to do the things that you've always wanted to do since you were six years old. And so, yeah, please don't tell those children something like that, because there are options. You may not have it all, but there are other sources. Let's find out what the combinations can be. They help you do that so that you don't have to have that talk with your children. So tell us about some of the different options that are out there. Yes, so everyone is allowed to apply for the Federal Financial Aid that's FAFSA. I know the policies around how much of that money is available these days has changed, but there still is money available from the federal government, and many states actually use that FASSA form the information that it provides to determine how much aid that state is going to give to you as well. So if you ignore the fats of the form, you may be missing out on opportunities. They get funding from the federal government as well as from your state because they're using that form to determine how much money they're going to give to you overall. So that's kind of the foundation of beginning the whole process. And one of the things I would say to you is talk to your school counselor about that form. Your school counselor might have sessions at the school on completing the financial aid form. I know here in Philadelphia we have sessions all over the city around how to complete that form. We have something

7:22 called a Philadelphia College Roundtable that helps with filling out that and we educate others on how to help those individuals that fill out their form. So there's always someone out there to help. You just have to sometimes dig into meeting with the counselor at your school or the vice principle at your school to find out what resources are available. And I will say also, don't wait until junior year to get started getting this information. So the first year that you're in high school, used to start gathering all this information about the FABS of form, the requirements, the information that you're going to have to provide, the information that your students is going to have to provide if their school has a regular financial aid workshop at the school. Start going ninth grade, tenth grade, eleventh grade.

8:08 So it'll gather so much information on what you need to do to get access to that information. And I think that really works. It keeps you on task with how things are changing, rather than waiting to the senior year and now, oh I thought I needed this, but I needed that to find these funds that are available to you. Yeah, that's important. I know when I was a little girl a long time ago, I was in the sixth grade and knew I wanted to go to college. But back then, we had a lot of counselors. We had a lot of college prep. They started talking to us about that in the sixth grade, and so we had a lot of motivation that was going on. You know back in those years. I don't know whether they have that, like I said, with the funding and things, some of them don't even have, you know, counselors anymore. But you know there has to be you know, right now there's so much tech. Go look online or something and find out, but you know that that information is available.

9:17 Yeah. I also would say go to your local state legislator's office and find out what kind of resources and information that they know. In Pennsylvania, we have FEA, which is our state federal financial aid, but they also coordinate with FASA and so they work together. They have seminars throughout the state, so you maybe go into your state legislator or senator's office or counselor on person's office you can find out what's available as well. Yeah, the fund. You know, information, Like I said, information, information is power, and the more you know, the more power you have to be able to make good decisions because you get all of the data that you need to be able to analyze and come up with a solution.

10:06 What's the total cost of attendance and what expenses does it cover? What's the cost now? I know it was really a lot cheaper when I went to school. What's the cost now? I mean the cost pushing room and board can go anywhere from twenty five thousand to ninety five thousand for one year in college, and so it is a big investment that you have to consider what. Is affordable to you. The colleges are supposed to give you an idea of what amount of aid that you're going to get each year. If a college does not do that, then you risk the possibility of the second year you thought you had x amount of money and now it's changed in the second year. So have that conversation with the Financial Trade Office about how much they can tell you about what's going to happen over the next four years. You know, will there be increases that go along with the increases intuition, because you know, tuition can increase three to five percent per year while you're in college. So if you've gotten a certain amount of a certain amount of financial aid and then tuition increases, but that financial aid doesn't increase, you have to make up the difference, and you have to know what is your true ability to make that difference.

11:28 Sup Will they tell you that you know when you first supply, Will they be informed enough to be able to tell you, Yeah, there might be some increases, but this aid that you're receiving right now will not, you know, increase proportionately. If that's the way that they operate at the financial aid level. It will be determined by how the institution is. There are some institutions that are not raising tuition right away. They may wait one or two years. But the odd thing about that students feel that when you don't raise tuition, the quality is going down. So there's a delicate balance OF's what you want to do with that, because you don't want to lose students because they can no longer afford your institution, But they also don't want to send the wrong message.

12:19 Is there some way you can kind of negotiate while you're you know, discussing, they aid, and get a rate lock in? Well, you can, Well, there's certain different types of scholarships, so this scholarship will determine what that will be throughout the time that you're in school. So you're right, I mean, it would lock in. Maybe the most that we're going to give is thirty thousand dollars a year. You have to come up with a difference whatever that might be. But I would say always make sure whatever the scholarship is, whatever they aid, is that you have documentation, that you have proof to what was said, what was committed, so that those things don't go away. You know exactly what they're going to be, and you can prepare for the subsequent years and how you're going to be able to fund your education. So it again, it just depends on the institution. A lot of institutions have something called the Presidential Scholarship and the presidential scholarship pays for everything. It pays for housing, it pays for tuition. There might be a stipend that goes along with it on a monthly basis.

13:29 Those are for the top top school students who applied to various schools that are able to receive that presidential But it's a wonderful resource, and again it depends on the university's funding. Place like Penn State might have thirty of them, whereas a private school might only have ten of them, So it just depends on the institution. This year we started considering everyone for scholarships. Used to be you had to apply for it. Now we're just looking at your profile and your information to determine who we want to bring in and maybe interview for these scholarships.

14:12 Now, do most of the scholarships or in financial aid, do they also pay for, you know, additional fees like specific courses that might be something wasn't part of the regular plan, but you realize now you have additional courses that you want to take because of the path you're going. Would that it cover that? You know, would it cover you know, lab fees or books? Food? Well, everyone has a maximum a number of credits that you can take per semester. And so.

14:53 If you're within that range or whatever the maximum is at that institution, they're not going to charge you extra for courses because they're not even going to allow you to take more than that amount of course. Is why, because they don't want you to fail. They have a history of a student with this amount of courses will have can still have success, and they want to overburden the student with too many credits where they don't have enough time to even study, so they're kind of maximizing that out for each semester. Okay, And I have actually told some students I'm sorry, no, you go ahead now. I wouldn't say I have depending on the student's circumstances if they're struggling with a semester, I have told students to maybe consider dropping down to four classes instead of five just for that one semester to work their way through, because you'd rather get through the semester without having a failing grade on your transcript than to have a failing grade and now your scholarship is at jeopardy because you didn't maintain the GPA. And that's another point. I guess that some scholarships require that you must maintain at three point oh to keep the scholarship.

16:07 Mm hmm. Yeah, and that is important, you know. That's why I say even you know, their academics is very important to be considered when they are considering what school they're going to and you know, what kind of aid they're going after. There's so much more funds available for students that are in the four point o range than maybe the two point five range, and so it's very important to you know, get that, get that academic and get that, you know, get your scores, get your test, you know, do what you can to make sure that you are a student that is achieving excellence because it opens so many more doors for you than if you're just average and just trying to get by. So that's that's really really important.

17:01 I would say that don't so some students need to start at community college. If you know that your child has a two point five two point seven, it might be better for them because you're looking at their study habits, you're looking at how much they invest in reading their books. You know your child, as your child can fully engaged in the learning process, and you don't want to spend forty thousand dollars for your student not to make it through the first semester in college, so it's not a bad thing. Plus, it's more affordable for them to. Start at a community college and then transfer into a four year institution. There may be some agreement. For example, Community College of Philadelphia has an agreement with Temple University, and all the credits that they take at the Community College of Philadelphia will transfer into Temple, so they only have two additional years after they earn their associate degree.

18:02 That's a worthwhile way of investing because you want to see whether your child will actually put forth the effort to be successful in college. Right yeah, especially if during high school they really weren't as focused as they may have been, didn't have good study habits, didn't have the maturity. I mean, to be honest, some of them just really have spent too much time maybe clowning around and didn't realize, you know what, this is a good time. It's a fun time, but you're getting ready to make a step into adulthood, and now you really need to start getting serious about the future because you're going to be older a lot longer than this moment right now, and I don't think you know, a lot of youth understand. You hit that age twenty one, you've grown and all of the pressures of adulthood, you know, comes down on you, and you haven't thought about it, you haven't planned for it, you haven't worked towards it, and then there you are not knowing what to do and just you know, making a lot of bad decisions.

19:13 So you need to understand when you come in as a sophomore in high school, you have three more steps to becoming an adult and getting into a situation where you need to be making decisions for the rest of your life. Selecting a career. You should be thinking about that a lot sooner than senior. Great, you really need to be thinking about it because you are stepping into and that's when things become serious and you don't get as many considerations that, oh, they're just a kid. No, they don't think about that anymore. Now you're an adult and need to be making better Does some schools offer merit based scholarships?

20:06 Oh? Yes, most s colleges do offer merit based scholarships based on your your GPA from high school, your overall grades, activities that you've been involved with, a lot of leadership kinds of things. We want to see students who can be leaders within our organizations on campus. Volunteerism is big a lot of times when they're looking at volunteer activities of students who are applying. We've had students who started their own organization and supported other young people. So anytime you kind of take initiative, start your own organization or start your own business, things like that stand out for the institutions. One of the things that we're in the business of is making sure students graduate. We are evaluated from our crediting agency in terms of how students are graduating from our institutions, and also we are competing in a way against other institutions in terms of their house students are graduating from their institutions. So we want to make sure that we're giving you the best experience that we possibly can while you're while you're enrolled at our institutions.

21:19 Okay, one of the things is you're applying for a scholarship, is there are there requirements to renew that scholarship. Most most of you know you don't have to think about it anymore m hm. So the financial aid will have office will have control of what's happening with that scholarship for the most part, and they will know whether there are certain requirements, whether there's a GPA requirement or some kind of volunteer requirement that goes along with it. They'll be aware of that and keep track of that. So it's important to follow whatever guidelines. The guidelines of a scholarship will be given to you upfront in the expectation. Now, some scholarships, if you are fall below the GPA that they require, they'll have like a probation semester and where they'll give you an opportunity to work at it better and so that you can improve your GPA. So how do you improve your GPA? You must have better study habits. You must manage your time better. You must get help from your professors when you need help. You need see if there's a We have something called learning support services at our university.

22:43 A lot of university have something similar where they want to show you how to study, how to organize, how to plan your day. I say this is so important because I recently had a class of our new students and I asked them how many have a daily planner? I would say only five percent of the class had a daily planner. So I'm like, how did you get through high school without a daily planner? So I just want to highly recommend to those who are listening to have your child have a daily planner. It can be something that they hold in their hand I get minds from Staples, or it can be something that you have electronically that will give you notices. But having something that tracks you how you're using your time, I think is really important. It shows that you're organized and you're planning for your success.

23:33 Yeah, and believe it or not, it's something that that's a habit you're going to be using for the rest of your life. Whether you're at work, whether you have your own business, whatever it is, you're going to have a planner because you're going to be planning your day for the success of your own business. You're going to be planning the day of meeting deadlines on your job. But you're always going to be using a planner for all of the meetings and all of the do dates and all of the people you need to call. So that's a habit that they probably already have. They're planning to call this friend, this friend, this friend, watch TikTok. This time, you just need to grow up your planner so that it has, you know, some things that are going to give you the values you need so you can succeed in your study habits while you're in school.

24:23 Because it is the foundation and the basic of your very future, your future job, your future career, your future direction. It's not something you take lightly. It's a decision you're making for the rest of your life. Now, some of us we take paths two or three different ones, but you have the basic foundation. It gives you the you know, the little stems that you can go in different directions, but you at least have to set up that foundation. You know. I was looking at the number of you know, some of the the family contributions that are there, and I was looking at in the years between twenty three and twenty four, rental income and savings had to cover and estimated forty eight percent of the college cost for their families, and then they had to borrow. So parents need to get engaged. Also, like you said, don't start when they are sophomore in high school. Start Okay, maybe the eighth birthday, tenth birthday, but you need some people all to start a funding you know when the child is born, you know, when you're just putting away some money every month to be prepared for that college. So that is something you know, maybe you parents don't know about young parents that are

25:55 that are out there listening. You know, can how does that work? You know what kind of vehicles is it? I know they used to have college insurance plans where you can. Yeah, they have something called the five twenty nine plan. Most states have this where you can invest in this five twenty nine plan not have to worry about taxes and accumulate money to save for your child. And so I would suggest everyone takes a look at that for their state and how they can invest in that so they can have a next stage that's developing over time.

26:36 And you know, if you have a lot of schools have state schools, so they can use that toward any school, whether it's state school or private college or they all have ways that they can accept that money to ensure that it's helping to pay for your student's education. And one of the other things I was as a tip that I would say to the parents and the students is to have a scholarship day. And that's like one hour each week that's a scholarship time. That's when your son or daughter is doing a scholarship search, sending out letters, meeting deadlines for the scholarships, organizing their schedule if they have interviews for the scholarships. So I think it's important to have like one set aside day and hour that you're focused in on these scholarships because a lot of students lose money because they don't have a specific day in time. They don't apply to the scholarships on time, and they don't have time to do the essays and so forth. So if you set aside that time, you're in a better position.

27:48 I was wondering are there still because I know when I went to school, we had grants that you could apply for, so I was able to go to school grant and those were funds that you know, if you met the academic requirements, you didn't have to pay back. So do they still have grants? They still have grants, and also they have alumni who donate to the institution and that they're able to use those funds for grants. So a lot of times those grants are in specific departments like our business department or our fine arts department or our engineering department or nursing department.

28:29 They have their own grants that they're able to give out that's named after someone literally that's giving them money or put they've put five hundred thousand dollars into an account, and the interest off of that pays for the ongoing student grants that go out throughout the years. So it just depends on that. Sometimes states have their own grants. So the main thing is meeting the requirements and knowing that there is a requirement and that that does involve having a calendar of how you're going to do it. Yeah, yeah, definitely, definitely. So there are there are resources, you know, so that people are saying, well, I'm never going to be able to go to college, there's opportunities, there's funds, and just think you're leaving money on the table.

29:21 Nobody leaves money on the table. You know, if there's money there, go get it, you know, don't let it just sit there and just go away. Go get the money and let it, you know, be able to make your life so much better and help you help you meet those streams that you want. Well. One of the reasons why I wrote my scholarship book was because I realized a lot of people don't know how to get started and following and finding scholarship books. So it was kind of my catalyst, and I did seminars and so forth on these topics, and I wanted to provide with a resource. So the book actually has one hundred different scholarship websites that you can go to, and it's a great resource that way.

30:09 Yeah, the first time I talked to you, if you well, back in twenty twelve or twenty thirteen, I got your books on studying and then the one on getting you know, some financial aid and things like that. And well, I don't have that book anymore because I gave it to someone for their children. They actually the children are benefiting. I actually have an addition of mede to it. I have a I have a podcast like you similar that. I took the topics on scholarships and put that in a scholarship book as a QR code, so people can now listen to me talk about how to find financial aid or you know, how to write a letter or a scholarship. So I've done that in all three of the books, the Studies Skilled Books and the Parents Book have these QR codes. In them that you can actually listen to me talk about the topic of time management or how to organize yourself or how to plan for your future. So I'm pretty excited about that kind of take it to the next level.

31:17 And when they go out there a website, they're able to be able to get this information, Am I correct? Yes, they can go to doctor Jones books dot com to take advantage of those as well as some schools purchase it for hundreds of students and I work with them to do an invoice or they want to pay my credit card, I can do that or cash out. These days, this is a whole other world out here. Yeah, I was looking at that with the little QR codes and things. Makes it so so efficient to be able to go in and look at those videos and be able to see what to do and give you you know, because some people they don't want to read through a lot of stuff. They're just used to looking at reels and videos and stuff like that. So yeah, this is an opportunity to just go out to that website and you know, get that information and just download them step by step by step by step until you've finished that application and you get that award. Letter in the mail and you're happy and dancing around the house.

32:26 I mean, that's that's the whole goal was to give you an opportunity to to meet those dreams and to do those things you know, I know, like financial the scholarships. I mean, I hear about like my own granddaughter, she's in school from a basketball scholarship. So you can get them through sports, you can get them through what other skills? And oh yes, yeah, yes, there's there are lots of them. There's everything to use every day. Places like home Depot, Coca Cola, McDonald's, companies that you're using every day are giving scholarships. Your parents may work at a place where they have a scholarship. Sometimes parents forget that they have a scholarship at their job, or they may have it through a credit union that they belong to their scholarships that are available there. So that's why it's so important to have a day that you're focused on it because it can take lots of lots of searching to find these things, but it's worth the investment of your time and you might get a few rejections, but you also are likely to get a few acceptances of your requests for scholarships, but you have to.

33:43 Be in the game. In other words, to win them, you have to have submitted. And I've even seen where a scholarship went to one student and they decided not to accept the scholarship, and then the scholarship goes to the next student. You still have to be in the game to get it, to make sure that you're applying, meeting the deadline, with everything to take advantage of it. Well, yeah, I mean especially you know when you mentioned the cost of getting this education, I would be writing everybody, whether I was qualified or not. I don't care if they react. I just want to take a chance. I would be writing everyone, especially if it's in an area that I have interests. If it's in you know, healthcare or you know, the arts or something like that, I would definitely be right filling it out, you know, And once you learn how to do it, it just becomes, you know, almost automatic to how to do the next one and the next one. And another thing. Parents can also get tax credits for the money that they spend for their children's higher education expenses. And we're all looking for a tax write off, so this is something else that can can be a way of being able to make sure that your student is able to go to

35:15 school and go to you know, do the things that they want to do. And then of course there's always loans too, but and I'm saying that they're bad, it's an opportunity, but check. Your rate. At the rates, so make sure it's not something that is going to be going up and down and up and down, and make sure it's something that's very affordable. Can you can you still pay that loan in bad times? Yeah, you're doing you can do it great, But you never know what life has to bring and what happens if someone in the family, you know, becomes unemployed or becomes ill, will you still be able to you know, make those payments.

36:00 So you know, I guess maybe at a last resort that would be an option, but I would definitely be looking at all the various ways that are available. And if you start early, my goodness, you'll find all the opportunities. Like I said, like your state there in Pennsylvania, I know most of the other states because even the small smaller states that I've worked in, and they have all of these different opportunities. So it's a matter of just doing some research and I know, everybody's got some kind of AI on their phone. Put your AI to work, find out where all these scholarships and things are, and then get busy.

36:49 And I like to add to that, there are associations. So I'm the advisor for the National Society of Black Engineers. It's composed of college students and pre college students. So middle school, elementary school, middle school, high school are part of this big organization that's called the National Society Black Engineers. They offer scholarships to students not only when they are applying to college, but when they're in college, you can still apply for more scholarships. So there's a society of Women Engineers. There's a society where it span professional engineers. There's engineering societies mechanical, electrical, chemical, but I'm imagining that in the same bin that they have those. There's a National Nursing Association, there's a National Black Nursing Association. There's sororities and fraternities that are focused on different aspects of professions.

37:45 So those are other places that you can apply for funding. As I've said earlier, make sure you know the deadlines and make sure two three weeks ahead of time you're submitting your application, because sometimes the agency that you've for organization that you submitted this scholarship to will say oh, we're missing one element. But if you submitted it at the deadline, then they're not going to call you. There, I say, you just missed the opportunity because you didn't do everything you need to do. So get in and ahead of time, so they need to tell you, oh, you need this additional essay. They have time to require and request the additional essay or whatever it might be that's necessary.

38:27 Yeah. Yeah, I'm thinking to myself, I would definitely have it in there at least sixty days before the deadline, just in case they now do ask for some additional information and you've got to do some research or whatever you like. You said, the deadline's important because if you miss it, I'm sorry, they're not going to They're not going to open that window and say, Okay, we'll give you a chance. No when it's closed close, And it's because they have rules and regulations they have to follow. It's not personal. They just have to follow the rules.

39:08 And if they say the deadline, then it has to be in there by that deadline because it needs to be a competitive thing where everybody applied at the same time and then they begin making their decisions. People straggling in. Then you've taken away from what they consider the fairness of the allotment of the funds. So, yeah, you just got to follow some of the rules. Just follow the rules. Make sure the lines are complete, and make sure the lines are complete, and you can't use a spell checker so that it does look as if you know, you are ready to go to college and you are completing this so you know, to the best of your ability, and you were mentioning yeah, yeah, it is. Yeah, no, back to that, It is very important. I know when I've been in management and I've had to read you know, information from someone that's applying for something or or you know reports that I've expected or something like that, and you know there's misspelled words, there's you know, the sentences aren't connecting correctly and different things like that. Well, that just really just turns off even completely reading the rest of this information, because if I mean, it causes someone to evaluate you without really knowing who you are. They're

40:39 evaluating you based on what you have presented to them, and what you presented represents who you are, So you need to put your best foot forward and make sure your presentation really does, you know, reflect who you are, and you are a person that's wanting to achieve excellence. So give them excellence to look at and then they'll they'll know you're serious. But not paying attention to something as simple as spelling when there's all kinds of tools out there that can check and make sure that it's correct and you won't even check it, then that that does not, you know, appear very kindly for you. So that's that's that's really important. So when you need to have it in all time, you need to make sure that it's accurate. You need to make sure that there aren't spelling and sentence scares.

41:38 That's really important, and it also sets a president for how you conduct yourself when you're in college that you're paying attention to detail, that you're spell checking things that you're submitting, and that plays out further when you get into corporate America that there is an expectation that you can communicate effectively in writing or and speaking, that you have that ability. So all these are training grounds for the future that you're expecting to see yourself in and when you submit that essay because you've actually thought about what you're about to write, it sounds so much better. It sounds so much enticing to the person that's reading it because it looks like and it feels like you took time to think about what you wanted to say.

42:27 I had a couple more questions. I wanted to know, how are the housing costs covered? If if it's not including your scholarship, are there ways that they can get work, you know, while they're only you know, at the university, or you know, what kinds of things can they find just to cover their housing costs. Well, there's tuition room on board, so the overall financial aid package will include money towards that, and then there'll be amount of balance that may be left over. If it's covered, it's covered. What some students have done is they have worked when they get in their sophomore junior year, they have worked as resident assistants in the residential halls, and then that way their housing is covered because they've been working as a resident assistant. So I've seen a number of students take advantage of that and save you know, thirty forty thousand dollars because they actually worked while they were at their college. So that's you know, and then like you said, with loans, if you have an outstanding balance, you know, you could get a loan or maybe if you have enough of a grant, it'll cover that. There used to be a time years ago where a lot of students got refunds because they had an over amount of financially, but not as many of those are going out as there have been in the past because the cost of

43:57 college alone is so expensive. Mm hmmm. I do remember. There was always it wasn't it wasn't small money either. There was always money oh left over on my grant. It was like, oh wow, I got a few thousand dollars here. In school. Yes, so yeah, I know. Now they're probably a lot tighter, but back then, you know, there were there were a lot of, you know, wonderful perks that were offered for you going to school. What other recommendations do you have to assist students that need financial assistance?

44:41 Well, believe it or not, some students have done go fund me where they just had created GoFundMe and send it out to all their uncles, aunts, cousins, church members to help them fund their college experience and sometimes that's been beneficial in terms of, hey, one of your church member is so excited about you being in college, they'll give you five hundred dollars every year that you're in college and every year that you're succeeding in college. So it's kind of like putting it out there for people to make an investment in you. My daughter did it in a really creative way that she was doing her dissertation for her doctorate degree, and she created an account with all the books that she needed and so she sent it out to everybody, kind of almost like, what do you call it? We have that event before the.

45:37 Baby's born where you actually give out gifts, you get gifts. They yeah, so baby shower. Now they have a system where you can list all the different gifts that you want and to send it out to people and they just pay the thing that they can afford. So she did the same thing with books, the books that she needed funding for and then they could just go on and the book was automatic shipped to her. So it was wonderful we see save hundreds of hundreds and hundreds of dollars because she really needed books and that was a creative way to get that done.

46:17 Yeah, books were really expensive even back in my days, so I know they're probably you know, pretty expensive now, and just covering those books and lab costs and different things like that, you know, all of that, you know needs to be taken into consideration. And but you know, just listening to you, it's like, there's no reason for anyone wanting to go to college not being able to go to college, because there's just so many different options and opportunities to be able to get funding. It just takes some grit and some time and going after it.

47:01 Like I said, don't leave money on the table, do something about it and make it happen for yourself. Definitely, definitely. Here's another tip that I give out, and that is, for example, the school District of Philadelphia has the section of its website for scholarships, but all those scholarships aren't specifically for Philadelphia students. There are other kinds of scholarships, So go on that website, go on other school district's websites to see what scholarships they have information about, or what resources that they have. A lot of the states themselves have a section of the state website where the part of education offers scholarship information, so you can go there as well all the colleges that you're applying to.

47:50 You may have four or five colleges that you're applying to, go through the scholarship portion of their website because there may be other scholarships that aren't specifically targeted to that university that you can apply to. M Yeah, I mean, I know, I hear people that are you know, born in Ohio, but they end up going to Pennsylvania and different things like that. And you know, are they recruiting these students, you know, to come to their school or or you just decide I'm going to go to that school because I want to live in Pennsylvania. That's a good question, A good question. So we have alumni associations all over the country at Villanova, and we will have different events where the alumni will recognize will will be the person that represents us at the various high schools in the local area at the various college fairs.

48:49 They will help us with that. And then we have admission staff that do the same mission staff that go all over the country recruiting students. I would say, because. We're filled up right outside of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, A large portion of our schools that or students that apply to Villanova are from Virginia through Connecticut because they know our school. But we do have students from as far as Hawaii and Africa and South America. We have students from all over the world that come to Villanova from China, from India, so we have representation from all over the world. We keep our doors open to anybody that wants to apply.

49:31 But yes, we are doing a lot of outreach to make this happen. It's not just happening by advertisement. We have to physically send people to certain places to the recruitment effort. Okay, So in other words, when you hear of a college fair, you need to rush there and make sure you get all the information that is available to you. Doctor Jones, thank you so much for being here today and sharing this information with the parents of those students who want to attend school. And thank you for listening today. And you can contact doctor Jones at his website and get even more information. And as usual I'd like to say, do what you can to help your child meet their dream and whatever you do, stay informed. I want to thank you for joining us on a sharp outlook we have been informed and energized to take the next steps.

50:32 We have posted links to websites and videos to learn more on today's topic. Please join us again next week for another thought provoking conversation right here on key for HD radio and Talk for TV. Listen to the podcast on all the podcast apps, and until next week, stay informed.