A mother from Kazakhstan wrote to us to suggest we add the word “scholarship” to our Glossary of Confusing Words. As we talked more, it turned out the meaning of the word “scholarship” had been important for her – her two children went to college in the U.S. Here’s her story about what she learned about finding scholarship money, and why her experience sending her daughter to college led her to change her approach when it came time for her son to apply.
“We have explored two different aid achieving paths, both, though, based on the kids academic success and our relatively low income.
Our daughter studied in a state university (her SAT was not very good to apply to better schools), and we paid her tuition in full initially, while she was earning excellent grades in the university. Then she applied for financial aid in her school and got a 50% discount and a decent scholarship deducted from the discounted tuition, so the remaining part was three times less than her initial tuition.
» Not all schools provide this option. Find out how financial aid policies can differ.