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College in the US is expensive—too expensive, in fact, for the average student to be able to afford on their own. According to the National Center for Education Statistics, 85% of first-year students at four-year colleges were receiving financial aid in 2016-17. Financial aid is good in all its forms, right? If it helps college students afford their educations, what could be the problem?

Unfortunately, not all financial aid is created equal—and not all schools can afford to give out "good" student aid. Here, I'll briefly talk about the types of financial aid available (the "good" kinds and the "bad" kinds) before introducing the colleges with the best financial aid programs in the country.

If you're hoping to be far from home for college but are worried about the cost of an out-of-state school, you might run into some issues in the application process. How do you find out-of-state schools that still offer relatively cheap tuition?

In this article, I've compiled a list of schools that offer the lowest tuition rates and highest rates of institutional aid to out-of-state students. Keep reading to learn what these schools are!

It's never too early to start saving up money for your college education. Even if you are only in your first or second year of high school, there are plenty of opportunities to start bringing in money that will pay for your tuition, books, fees, and living expenses a couple of years down the line.

You might be surprised to learn that there are actually hundreds of scholarships available to underclassmen. If you're just starting your hunt, use this list of the 37 best scholarships for high school freshmen and sophomores to get started.

When universities go through admissions applications, they take many factors into consideration, like your grades, your extracurriculars, and even your personality!

But many college applicants don't realize that some universities also consider you—and your family's—ability to pay tuition as well. The hard truth is that some universities use an applicant's ability to pay tuition without financial aid as a factor in the admissions process. This became the subject of a 2015 article from Time Magazine, which explains that many universities consider how students can contribute to their institution financially when they make admissions decisions.

This sounds like scary news. But don't worry! Many schools are addressing the issue by transitioning to need-blind admissions policies, which remove economic status as an admissions criteria.

In this guide, we'll give you a complete list of need-blind colleges in the United States and answer all of your burning questions, including:

• What is need-blind admission?
• How do need-blind policies affect tuition costs?
• What should you look for in a need-blind school?

So let's get started!

Pell Grants are awarded by the federal US government to help students pay for college or vocational school. Figuring out whether you're eligible can be confusing, but this post will guide you through all the eligibility requirements you should know about if you want to apply for a federal Pell Grant.

If you need a basic intro to what the Pell Grant is, check out our overview guide.

Students are automatically considered for the Pell Grant when they submit their Free Application for Federal Student Aid, or FAFSA. For 2020, the deadline for submitting a FAFSA (and thus being considered for a Pell Grant) is June 30th. You can learn more about Pell Grant submission here. In this post, we'll cover the following:

• How to figure out whether you're eligible for federal student aid
• What the Pell Grant income limits are
• How to figure out whether you're eligible for the Pell Grant specifically
• Pell Grant award maximums
• What you can do to increase your chances of getting the Pell Grant

You've worked hard all throughout high school and are an academic and extracurricular superstar. You're looking forward to the challenges that college will bring. But are you ready for the challenge of paying for college?

There are a lot of ways students come up with the money to fund their higher educations. Did you know, though, that it can be as easy as getting one award? In this article, we give you a list of 85 colleges that offer at least one full-ride scholarship to cover all of your tuition costs.

Many students think that they should begin looking at college scholarships once they actually start applying to college—so some time early in their senior year. Although it’s true that many big-name scholarships require applicants to be high school seniors, there are some great awards out there for younger students as well.

So why not get a head start in applying for scholarship awards? You could win money for college, sure, but you’ll also get experience in the scholarship application process before submitting even more applications during your senior year.

I’ve compiled a list of scholarships for high school juniors. This list will be a great place to start, but you might also want to search for more targeted awards (e.g., by geographic area). You can browse the scholarships below based on whether they're competitions or merit-based scholarships. Read to the end for tips and strategies on getting the most scholarship money possible!

Because wages seem to be remaining stagnant and college costs continue to soar, financial concerns are weighing more heavily on families when students make their college decisions. Additionally, student loan debt is increasing and young people are worried about being saddled with astronomical debt when they graduate.

In this article, we provide you with a list of the 51 cheapest colleges in the United States. We also explain the costs of various colleges and how finances should influence your college selection process.

The Gates Scholarship is a program with a huge impact. Launched in 2017, the program's mission is to give opportunities to outstanding minority students to reach their highest potential.

In this guide, I'll go through all the details of the scholarship and the application protocols. After that, I'll give you expert tips and strategies for putting together the strongest Gates Scholarship application possible. Read on to learn more!

Note: The Gates Scholarship was established in 2017 as a replacement for the Gates Millennium Scholars Program, which reached its goal of 20,000 scholars in 2016.

The Florida Bright Futures scholarship programs are great resources for Florida students who plan on staying in-state for college. To date, the Bright Futures program has helped 725,000 Florida students go to college!

As with any scholarship program, though, there's a lot of information to process about the awards. Just sifting through all the eligibility requirements and award limitations can be overwhelming, never mind figuring out how to actually submit an application.

In this guide, I've compiled all the information you need about the Bright Futures scholarships. I'll talk about the different award programs, their eligibility requirements, the application process, and strategies to help you win your own.

The Florida Bright Futures Scholarship programs are awesome education funding options for Florida state residents—if you can get through the application process, that is. The scholarships offered are particularly nitpicky and tedious about their eligibility requirements: the official handbook outlining these criteria is its own 14-page book chapter. (Luckily, we've created an overview for you in a different, much shorter post.)

Not to worry! I’ve outlined all the eligibility criteria for Florida Bright Futures Scholarships (general and specific, for each scholarship, with every single exception or special circumstance) in a way that’s a bit easier to get through.

I’ve also included information about when to expect notification about your eligibility. Once you’re considered eligible, you’re one (big) step closer to winning a Bright Futures Scholarship. After you’ve processed all this information, I’ll get to the good stuff—how to increase your chances of winning your own Bright Futures award.

You may have thought that scholarships were only for those who had great grades or were top athletes. Well, think again! There are a lot of organizations willing to give you some college cash in recognition of your interesting habits, unusual attributes, or willingness to do something a little bit quirky!

Here's a complete collection of the best weird, unusual scholarships we could find. The good news is they're often a lot easier to apply to than other scholarships.

Do you have the brains and passion to become an engineer but worry about the cost of the education? You're not alone. But luckily, you can help offset those costs by applying for scholarships that can help you pay for college.

The following list of scholarships will show you that you have nothing to fear. Students of all backgrounds will find that there is an engineering scholarship out there for students like them that will help to make your education more affordable.

In this article, we'll cover many of the prominent engineering scholarships, as well as others that you may not have heard of before. You'll find them in the following categories:

• General Engineering Scholarships
• Mechanical Engineering Scholarships
• Civil Engineering Scholarships
• Aerospace Engineering Scholarships
• Nuclear Engineering Scholarships

Read on to see what engineering scholarships you may be eligible for!

The full-ride scholarship: the most mythical of scholarships that all students secretly (or not-so-secretly) dream of. Unfortunately, these scholarships are hard to come by, and they're even more difficult to win.

Though many schools offer full-ride or full-tuition scholarships, there are also a handful of scholarships out there—run by independent organizations and even the government—that you can use at almost any school. Read on to learn about some of the most highly sought-after scholarships in the country.

If you're looking into scholarship programs to help pay for your college education, the famous Coca-Cola scholarships are a good place to start. Why are they famous? Well, the Coca-Cola foundation offers some of the most generous awards out there to graduating high school seniors. They tend to be very competitive, so if you want a shot at the scholarship, you should learn as much about them as you possibly can. 

In this post, I'll talk about some of the logistical concerns you might have about the scholarship— things like deadlines and eligibility requirements. But more importantly, I'll also offer helpful tips and strategies to give your application the boost it needs. Read on to optimize your chances of winning one of these competitive scholarships!