[mindwaves]

So I am heading back to school in California and I need money for schools. Free money, scholarships, grants, loans, etc. I want to know what options do I have here and where can I go to search for these options? I already filled on the FAFSA form and based on the preliminary number, it is not looking pretty for me.

[besson3c]

Does your school have a financial aid department?

[mindwaves]

Yes, I will also be searching there. However, I want to know options that other people would recommend and their experiences with these options.

[Oisín]

Work and save up money. Probably not very helpful for someone in the US, but it works here.

Free money

Apart from the ‘no such thing as a free lunch’ thing, isn’t that an oxymoron of sorts?

[ghporter]

Actually, in this case the student is not dealing with a "no such thing as a free lunch" situation as much as the funding source is. Frequently, grants and scholarships wind up being either deductible or otherwise advantageous to the grantor. Either through positive press or "community involvement," these sources reap far more than the money could buy in advertising.

Unfortunately, higher education in the U.S. is awfully expensive anymore-and students don't get what they think they're paying for much of the time. Professors often wind up doing more research than teaching-and are often HIRED FOR THAT. Students wind up getting the "huge volume of experience" that teaching assistants can provide them (through having sat through one of the actual professor's courses and passed), and TAs are as a group awful teachers. (I can say that-I'm a trained instructor, and a trained instructor evaluator, as well as having been on the faculty of the largest community college in the world. That's not to say that full professors are sterling examples of the teaching machine, not by any means! But TAs have less background and less experience, so they do it worse even than their bad teacher profs do.)

Oops. Sorry for the soapbox. Shutting up now...

[KeriVit]

I'm doing a TA starting next week. I will prove you wrong Glenn!

Seriously, my school has an entire Scholarship department with a listing of the school and privately sponsored ones. There are also various websites to help. Do you fit into any out of the ordinary group?

[ghporter]

Originally Posted by KeriVit 

I'm doing a TA starting next week. I will prove you wrong Glenn!

Please do! Knowing that having attended classes does not prepare one to teach is the first step toward teaching well. Good luck with it!

[KeriVit]

Originally Posted by ghporter 

Please do! Knowing that having attended classes does not prepare one to teach is the first step toward teaching well. Good luck with it!

I should also say that is under my idol who is the department chair and he will not let me lead a class to doom. We will work as a team.

Also, scholarships.com brought me 2- $500 ones.

[Cadaver]

Prostitution. Good way for a student to make money.

(yes, I'm kidding)

[ghporter]

Originally Posted by Cadaver 

Prostitution. Good way for a student to make money.

(yes, I'm kidding)

Glad you're kidding. I'd die of starvation...