Paying for College

Middle college students overcome many obstacles to succeed in college. After graduation, though, a new and significant challenge arises they have not had to face: paying for college.

An associate or bachelor’s degree is worth the investment of time and money, but that doesn’t make it any easier to pay the tuition, housing, and textbook bills that come due before you get your degree and can start earning significant money. The good news is there are options for students (and parents) to pay for college. This page provides an overview of some of the options, including links to sites, organizations, and resources for learning more about them. It is not designed to provide a detailed explanation of financial aid for students.

If you want help paying for college, be ready to work for it.

Paying for college takes work, no matter how you look at it.

You are either working at a job to earn money directly,
working on researching financial aid opportunities,
working on completing applications for financial aid, or
all of the above.

The more financial aid you obtain, the fewer hours you need to work at a job while in school. That leads to less stress, higher grades, and a greater chance that you will complete a degree. So, get to work!

Go to the experts first

The best recommendation for learning about how to pay for college is to visit your college's Financial Aid Department and ask for help.

The financial aid officers at SC4 will be glad to meet with you and talk with you about your aid options and how to apply for them. You can also contact the financial aid office of the college or university you plan to attend in the future. They are the best resource for information on grants and scholarships for students enrolled at their school.

"Paying for College" Success Session - for students and parents

Every year, SC4's Director of Financial Assistance and Services, Josephine Cassar, talks to our grade 13 students and their parents about how to pay for college after they graduate from BWMC. Ms. Cassar is one of the most knowledgeable financial aid experts in the state of Michigan. She covers a variety of topics in her presentation. Spending an hour to view the presentation now will save you thousands of dollars a year if you are continuing in college after your middle college graduation.

Financial Aid

Financial aid refers to several kinds of assistance students can use to pay for the cost of attending college, including tuition, fees, textbooks, room and board, (living in a dorm and a campus meal plan) and other miscellaneous materials like a computer or calculator.

Common forms of financial aid include:

Grants
Scholarships
Loans
Work-study

Grants and scholarships do not need to be repaid. Loans, of course, must be repaid over time. Work-study is when students are provided a job working for the college. Earnings from the job can be used to pay expenses while a student attends college.

Below is a video from the U.S. Department of Education's Federal Student Aid site describing the different types of financial aid.

Federal Student Aid website

The Federal Student Aid website is a great place to learn about the different types of financial aid available and a whole lot more about paying for college. It includes pages of information on how to apply for aid, including the very important Free Application for Federal Student Aid, commonly known as the FAFSA.

Information specifically for parents
The Federal Student Aid site has a page of resources that will be of specific interest to parents.

What is the FAFSA and why you should apply

FAFSA stands for Free Application for Federal Student Aid. In short, the FAFSA is a way to gather financial information from students that allows the sources of financial aid know who might be in need of money to pay for college and how much they might need.

The information a student and his/her parents provides determines the student's "Expected Family Contribution" or EFC. The EFC is the amount of money the student is expected to be able to contribute to their college education. It does not always mean that the family can afford to pay that amount all at one time.

More information about the FAFSA can be found in the short video below. The Federal Student Aid YouTube channel has many more videos about student financial aid options.

Completing the FAFSA unlocks many ways to save money when paying for college. Many scholarships require a FAFSA to be filed if they are based in part on financial need. Even families who do not qualify for need-based grants or scholarships can benefit from cheaper loan costs if they have filed a FAFSA.

FAFSA help

Every student planning to take college classes next year should complete the FAFSA. SC4’s Office of Financial Aid is the place to go with FAFSA questions. Located in the college’s One Stop Office in the Welcome Center, the financial aid officers will sit down with you and walk you (and a parent if you want) through the entire FAFSA process. It should take between 30–60 minutes.

Affording College in Michigan: 2021-22 Guidebook

Other Resources

The College Board website has a lot of information on how to research colleges and careers, how to get into the college you want, how to pay for college once you leave BWMC, and make a plan for all of it. Start building your road map to the future by using the Big Future tool

Click on the "Pay for College" tab on the top right of that page to see lots of links to informational articles, videos and web pages about the types of financial aid available and ways for students to pay for school.

College Scorecard, from the U.S. Department of Education, allows students to find and compare colleges based on factors such as location, program of study, graduation rate, cost of attendance, amount of debt students graduate with, etc. It's packed with helpful information if you spend the time to get into it.

Scholarships

When high school graduation nears, students often start a frantic search for scholarships. Most scholarship dollars are secured well before senior year, because most are awarded based solely on a student's high school GPA and their SAT or ACT score. The best thing you can do to earn the most scholarship dollars is to work hard for high grades and practice for the SAT exam in 11th grade and retake the SAT at least once the following year to potentially improve your score.

MERIT-BASED ACADEMIC SCHOLARSHIPS

Many universities have fixed criteria for certain scholarships. Students are automatically considered for them and awarded the scholarship without having to apply for them. For example, at Oakland University, incoming freshmen in the fall who have a 3.4 high school GPA and an SAT score of 1030 will receive $1,500 per year for up to four years, which is a great scholarship! However, if that student scored an 1130 on the SAT, their annual scholarship jumps to $2,500 a year! That should be incentive enough to practice a lot prior to taking the SAT or, if you have already taken it once, take it again.

LOCAL SCHOLARSHIP RESOURCES
Community Foundation of St. Clair County
The Community Foundation of St. Clair County coordinates the granting of a few dozen scholarships for local students and colleges. Many of the scholarships are specific to students from particular high schools, pursuing particular degrees, or attending particular colleges, but there might be one or two that you qualify for.

Click here to see the list of scholarships. You will be asked to provide some information about yourself. The site will then find the scholarships for which you might qualify.

Applications for the scholarships will be available starting January 1st. The deadline to apply for scholarships managed by the Community Foundation of St. Clair County is usually in March each year. Check the website for more details.

SC4 Money site
Students attending SC4 or other colleges, in some situations, should click here for a list of scholarships coordinated by the SC4 Foundation. Students must have a valid SC4 email address to log in to the site and apply for any of the scholarships. Like the application for the Community Foundation scholarships, the process is relatively quick and easy.

Most scholarships on the SC4 money site must be used at SC4, but not all of them. Read the details of each carefully to learn if you qualify and if it can be used at a college other than SC4.

Special scholarship for Blue Water Middle College students only!
The DTE Energy Foundation - BWMC Endowment Fund is a scholarship exclusively for BWMC students. It can be done relatively quickly, however taking enough time to write a well-developed essay may be worth it.

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