Designing a Scholarship Plan with Your Parents
- Filed under: College Advice
- Date: Feb 21,2008
You have been accepted to a college, and you are about to turn in your scholarship application. You may ask yourself, “Will I see the money?” If your parents are paying for your school, you will not see the benefit of receiving scholarships, because the money will go to your parents and not to you.
Prior to filling out scholarship forms, you may consider sitting down with your parents and discuss a plan that will allow you to get a part of the money.
Your parents may wonder what benefit they will receive if you get a percentage of the scholarship. Their benefit is that they may expect more scholarship money to come in.
Even though money is not the most moral motivation, it is a motivation, and one that works very effectively. If you, as a college student, do not receive any percentage of the scholarships you will lose motivation. If you know that by working hard in college you have a chance of making money then you will be more motivated to become involved and attempt to get more scholarships.
What % Should You Ask For?
If your parents are paying for your college they should get most of the money, because whether you recognize it or not, your parents have put forth a lot of effort to get you through elementary school, high school, and now college.
However, it would be realistic to ask for 10-20% of the scholarships.
Let’s say that you were a good student in high school, and you end up getting half of your college tuition paid for. To go to college for four years will cost you $40,000 dollars ($5,000 a semester). Half of it is paid for by scholarships, so your parents will pay $20,000.
You set up a plan with your parents where you will get 20% of the scholarships, which motivates you to be active and work hard and you end up getting the full $40,000 paid for by scholarships. With your 20% profit from the scholarships, you end up with $8,000 after four years of college. That’s Awesome!
But what about your parents. How did they fare? Do the math. Originally, your parents were going to pay $20,000, but after you got a full ride scholarship and take away your awarded 20% they are left only paying $8,000. They end up paying 60% less than what they would have previously paid if you had not been motivated to receive more scholarship money.
Both parties have something to gain in this situation.
The idea of the student receiving a percentage of the scholarships may not work with every family. 20% may be too much to ask, but it won’t hurt to at least discuss the possibility.
When you sit down with your parents, make sure that both you and your parents are open. Perhaps your parents have hidden their financial information from you, but now is not the time for them to do that. As a college student, you are becoming an adult, and if both you and your parents want to make it through college successfully you must communicate as equals.
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