Beware of College Scholarship Scams
Posted on March 2nd, 2007 by Financial Diva
To followup from yesterday’s post about finding college scholarships, I thought I would also take the time to talk about scholarship scams. Here are some things to watch out for:
- Paying a fee to apply. Even if you are only being asked to pay $5, be wary anytime you need to pay a fee simply to apply.
- Paying a membership fee to a scholarship site. True, you can pay the fee, but it is nothing that a few hours of web searching won’t find. So skip the fee and invest in some online scholarship hunting or join one of the free searchable databases.
- Guaranteed scholarship. No one can guarantee you will get a scholarship simply by joining a site. It may increase the odds, but it certainly won’t guarantee you a scholarship.
- Enticements about unclaimed scholarships. Particularly later in the season there may be scholarships that are unclaimed, but chances are pretty good you won’t qualify because they are pretty specialized.
- You are awarded a scholarship but asked to pay. You will never be asked to supply your banking information or credit card information when you “win” a scholarship.
- Financial Aid Officiers are your friend. If in doubt, check with the financial aid officers at your school, as they will likely know right away if the scholarship is legitimate or merely a scam.
Good luck.
Filed under: College
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