Ben Kaplan knows a lot about saving on college tuitions. He earned some $90,000 in scholarships, which just about paid for his Harvard education.
So, what's his advice for parents of college-bound students?
First, It's never too early to start. Toshiba has a program for kids as young as kindergarten, where they do a project about the technology of the future."You figure out, 'What's the iPhone 25 going to look like?'" Kaplan explains, "It's a fun project. And you can actually win money in the form of a U.S. savings bond. So there are great programs for younger kids. And when you start early, that can help prepare you for what's coming down the road.
To find available scholarships, Ben suggests an online search. He has many listed on his site, CityOfCollegeDreams.org.
And don't think that you have to be a straight-A student to qualify.
Kaplan explains, "Over half of the scholarships I won had nothing to do with my grades and test scores, first of all. A lot of people take themselves out of the running because they think they can't win if they don't have a high GPA. But a lot of scholarships might not look at your grades at all."It takes some time to find and apply for scholarships, but many applications are similar and the payoffs can be huge.
"If you're smart about it, you can actually recycle and reuse everything that you do," Kaplan says. "So once you've done one application, you've already done half the work to apply for ten if you're smart about recycling and reusing."
For more of Kaplan's scholarship tips, click here.
