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Funding an Education

© Mike Turner

I want to thank Kerry Hook for inviting me to write a column on how to search for scholarships and internships. I have been running seminars since 1996, helping everyone from single moms to high school students find a way to pay for college.

I created the S.E.C.R.E.T. method-Selective Efforts Create Rapid Effects Tomorrow-to replace FEAR-False Expectations Appearing Real.

Here are a few steps to help your research:

1. Make a commitment of 90-180 hours in the coming year to spend on your search.

This sounds like a lot of time, but if you watched one hour of TV last week, you spent 20 minutes watching commercials.

15 minutes a day equals about 90 hours a year; 30 minutes a day equals about 180 hours. If you commit yourself to such a plan, spend at least 15 minutes a day. If you skip a day, do not beat yourself up; commit to resume the next day.

Also, small steps are important to make change a habit. If you can't commit 15 minutes, commit a minute to thinking of ways to search for scholarships. Write down your ideas. Next week, begin to implement some of those ideas. Make a phone call. Type in an internet address. Begin to fill out the form at http://www.fastaid.com/ . Make the commitment of spending one minute this week, two minutes the next week, and so on.

2. Fill out the forms and make profiles at three top scholarship search engines.

I recommend three sites:

http://www.scholarships.com http://www.fastaid.com http://www.fastweb.com

Create an email account at http://www.yahoo.com/ , so that can you give out this email address to the scholarship web sites. Just use this account for scholarships. Many of these scholarship search engines will send updates to your email. Also, you can avoid spam by not giving out your primary email address.

3. Follow successful methods created by others.

You do not have to reinvent the wheel. I recommend three books by people who have

a) received money well over $70,000

b) developed a system that we can follow easily

Ben Kaplan, author of "How to Go to College Almost For Free", 2nd ed., ISBN #0-06-093765-3. You want the 2nd edition of this book. Kaplan received more than $90,000 in merit scholarships to go to Harvard. His web site is at http://www.scholarshipcoach.com/ , he features on his web site a mentor-mentee scholarship and the deadline is Dec 2005.

Marianne Ragins in her senior year of high school received more than $400,000 in scholarship money. Her book is "Winning Scholarships for College", Third Edition: An Insider's Guide, ISBN # 0805075216 and her web site is http://www.scholarshipworkshop.com/ .

The copyright of the article Funding an Education in Single Moms is owned by Mike Turner. Permission to republish Funding an Education in print or online must be granted by the author in writing.