3 APPLICATIONS TO FILL OUT THIS SUMMER
You deserve to chill a little after along school year, but summer is also a great time to take advantage of financial aid opportunities, and get college paid for (in between trips to the pool, of course). Whether you’re college-bound oral ready in college and home for break, here are the three most important applications you should fill out this summer.
JOB APPLICATIONS
Guess what your most powerful wealth-building tool is? It’s not your investments, and it’s not credit card reward points (please tell me you and your parents are staying away from those). It’s your income. That means in order for you to make enough cash to get through college debt-free, you NEED to have a job. It’s not too late to find summer work as a server, life-guard, theme park attendant—you name it. You might even want to build your entrepreneurship skills by creating a business, where you can mow lawns, babysit, walk dogs, or house-sit with a flexible schedule.
Maybe you don’t want seasonal work because you want to keep your job during the school year. That’s great too! Just keep in mind that you might need to cut back on hours. I encourage you to look for job opportunities in your college town, and get started on applications while you’re home for the summer.
THE FAFSA
If you’re headed to college—or currently in college—and haven’t filled out the FAFSA for the 2019–2020 school year, you need to get on that now. Go to FAFSA.gov to find the form. Colleges use the FAFSA to determine how much money to offer you through scholarships, grants, and student loans. Just make sure you don’t accept any student loan offers you might get. We’re going to college debt-free, people! Luckily, the FAFSA isn’t as confusing as it sounds and takes less than 30 minutes to complete. Every student should fill it out regardless of your family’s financial situation. There’s no income cut off to be eligible for aid, and you won’t know how much aid you could actually get unless you try.
SCHOLARSHIP APPLICATIONS
The FAFSA form isn’t the only way to get scholarships. There are thousands of scholarships available to students for all kinds of reasons (getting good grades, writing a killer essay, or being a member of a minority group). I’d encourage you to set specific goals for the number of scholarships you want to apply for per week. Then, make it happen! There’s no limit to how many you can apply for, so you could potentially fund your whole college education through scholarships alone! Check out AnthonyONeal.com to see my top recommendations for reliable scholarship resources.
