## Who Should Apply for Scholarships and Why [01:00] All right, everyone. Sorry I am a minute late, right? I was just finishing up a consultation with a family, right? Uh but today we are going to be talking about being strategic with scholarships. Okay, so if you guys can go ahead and do me a favor, put your students grade in the chat, right? Oh, I see some sixth graders. I see some, you know, 2031, uh, I see some 2026, I see some 2029, uh, students that are just entering high school. So, welcome everyone, right? Um, before we kind of go into into anything, I do want to, you know, say we changed our slides, right? Uh, we changed our our kind of like company colors, right? So, we are now black and yellow, right? Uh, we wanted to make sure that uh, you know, all of our trainings were that color kind of scheme. So, uh, this is our new color scheme and our new slides, right? So hopefully you guys like them. Okay. Now, really quickly, what we're going to cover today, we're going to cover scholarships, where do you find them, what kinds are there, right? And I'll also be talking about what types of families should be applying for scholarships, and then families that should be thinking about if they're going to accept their scholarships or not. Now, that might seem a little bit foreign to you because you might be thinking, well, if I get a scholarship, of course, I want to take it, right? But there are situations where you do not. So, I will explain that later on today. Okay? So, just a little bit about me if you're joining us new from our Facebook group, right? My name is Coach David, right? Yes, I know I look a lot younger in that picture, right? But, uh, it is the same person. I am Coach David. I'm a former law school and college admission reader, right? Uh, ## Financial Aid News... Pell Grant and Work Study Cuts [02:30] I am also a former lawyer turned college admission expert, right? And I'm ready to save your family money. Okay? So, please stay tuned. I will have, you know, different links, different kind of uh, you know, QR codes throughout the kind of presentation so that you guys can go ahead and reach out to us if you guys need more help or if you guys need to talk to us. Okay. Now, really quickly, one of the things that we always like to do is financial aid news. I like to tell you what's happening in the world of financial aid. Obviously, it is a very tumultuous and chaotic time because of all the things that are happening with the new administration, abolishing the US Department of Education, this and that, you know, funding cuts, so on and so forth. So, I want to make sure that everyone understands what's going on. Okay. Now, most recently, right, last week, I had a little bit of good news, right? You know, the people at the US Department of Education that were cut, well, they're going to be reinstated because, well, they realized that nothing is nothing is working, right? uh there was like outages on certain key websites and they weren't able to be fixed because there was no one able to fix them, right? So they will be kind of like key people will be going back to the US Department of Education. But here's my thought about that. If you got fired from a job like because of like some government agenda, right? And they told you, oh we we'll take you back now. There's no job security any there anymore. I don't know if I would go back. So again, that is good news that they they are going to be allowing people to go back to work, but I don't know how many people are actually going to choose to go back. Right now, here's another uh-oh kind of situation that's going on, right? So the budget for the the kind of department of education was unveiled, right? And it is not good news, right? So according to the budget right that was proposed the Pell Grant which is a kind of lifeline that a lot of lower income families do rely on to attend college is going to drop 25% in the next fiscal year. Okay so that is a drop from $7,600 roughly to about $5,700. That's $2,000ish. Right? That's a lot of money to people that are lower income. Right now this I think right there's going to be a whole uproar about this as well. Right. and there's going to be lawsuits and this and that and so on and so forth. But that means that there's going to be less access to college for lower income students, right? Again, the whole point of the US Department of Education was to give access, right? But they're doing things that are going to limit access. So, I'm not sure what's going on. Okay. The other thing that we kind of need to keep in mind, right, come on. There we go. Right. There's also a proposal in the ## Where to Actually Find Scholarships That Fit [05:00] budget that will re realistically get not get rid of but severely hamper the amount of work study that any individual student can have. Right? So, previously work study was was a program where the government subsidized paying students to work onampus jobs. Okay? But what the what the kind of proposal is, right? The new administration has outlined a program where they're going to cut $1 billion dollar in federal work study. Okay? Instead, they're going to have either the employers or departments or colleges fill that gap. Right now, they're cutting funding for research and all this and all that. They're also taking away work study. How are they going to do research at colleges anymore? They don't have anyone to pay, right? There's going to be problems here. Okay? So again, right, I always tell families, stay tuned. We're going to try to bring you the most up-to-date information, right, with things that are happening with college admissions and financial aid. Okay, what I always tell parents is don't be scared. Get prepared. Okay, when it comes to financial aid, you probably heard one of these. Your family makes too much money. Oh, my family's not eligible. I don't even know what that means. Right? You own your home, right? So do a lot of people, right? But I always tell families, do you actually own your home or is there a mortgage on it? Because if there's a mortgage, it's not really yours. It's the banks until you pay it off, right? You own a rental property, right? If your neighbor didn't get any aid. These are a lot of the rumors and a lot of the things that that kind of stop people from getting the money they deserve, right? So, make sure to stick around to the end of the cons end of the presentation so you can get the link for our consultation. Okay. Now, before we get into our training, I do have a quick message, right? introducing Eaglelock. Right now, Eagle, I'm sure a lot of our families from Facebook and obviously our coaching families know what Eagle is, right? Eagle is our the company, our the name of our company, but if you actually look at it, it's just college spelled backwards, right? Once you see it, you'll never be able to unsee it, right? Financial aid secrets is a subsidiary of Eagle. Okay? Now, one of the things I wanted to introduce to you guys is the college application intensive. Okay? I always tell families getting in is the first thing. Figuring out how to pay is the next thing. Right. So the first part of the puzzle we need to figure out getting into college. This college app intensive can help you do that. Okay. Now we have been running our college application intensive kickstart starting in April, right? We went through May. We are now in June. Okay. Um but it is a oneday event. The kickstart to help the students get drafts of all their main essays. Then the accelerator, which is going to be happening in July, August, and September, is a two-day event, Saturday, and Sunday, that will help them get to the final drafts of those main essays. Okay? If you are interested in this, please reach out to us, right? And I'll have the phone numbers and QR codes later, but you can also visit us at collegeappointensive.com. Okay? Now, there's not many spaces left in June for ## Small... Niche... and Local Awards That Are Easier to Win [08:00] our Kickstarter. Okay? Once June passes, unfortunately, we're not going to have any more Kickstarters. We might have we're going to have a self-paced version, but no coaches are going to be there. Your student needs to do it on their own. Okay, so make sure that they can, you know, get a head start during the summer, right? Sign them up for that kickstart and accelerator. Okay, but let's get back into the training. Now, the training is about scholarships. So, the first thing that you guys probably have questions about is where do I get them, right? for today, right? Just so that we all are on the same page, right? Scholarships, I will be referring to scholarships as outside scholarships. Outside scholarships are things like Coca-Cola, IBM, Nike, Facebook, right? Pepsi scholarship, right? Uh your local Rotary Club, uh Lions Club, so on and so forth, right? Things that are not affiliated with your school, right? Again, these outside scholarships are are not provided by the colleges, right? They're outside organizations or sources, right? Now, the biggest kind of question that you guys probably have for me is where do you find them? Now, the world has become a lot better, right? Before there was like bulletin boards at on different college campuses, uh maybe at your high school in the, you know, in the counseling office, but now the internet exists and it works really well. And so, there's a lot of different websites out there, right? You have places like scholarships.com, fasteb, going mary, collegeboard's big future, right? Bold.org. These are different places that students are looking for scholarships online. Okay. Now, these are all great, but the one problem that I've seen with these types of scholarships is that you're complete you're competing against the whole population of people looking for scholarships, right? So, there might be a certain scholarship out there. It's a you know, it's a full ride to whatever college you want to go to, but there's 12 million people applying to it, right? So, the one thing I say is yes, go ahead, look at those websites first, but you might want to look at more kind of niche types of scholarships, things that are special to you. Maybe you have hazel ## Fine Print... Terms... and Renewal Conditions to Watch [10:00] eyes, maybe you uh, you know, ride a unicycle, maybe you are a surfer, right? You want to think look at things that are more detail oriented. And you also want to look on a smaller scale sometimes, city, local, regional, state, right? there's going to be smaller populations of people applying versus like the Facebook scholarship where there's tens of thousands of applicants every year. Okay? So, make sure that when you whatever kind of scholarship kind of, you know, search that you're that you're doing, you do scholarship searches that have details. Okay? Coach Art had a whole kind of training on this. Uh I believe it was about three months ago, right? Uh you if you're if you already have access to our YouTube channel, go ahead and look there, right? um and search up scholarships and you should be able to find it. Okay. Uh but my kind of tip is look smaller. Okay. Yes, the amounts might be smaller as well, but there are higher chances of you actually winning. Okay. Now, the types of scholarships that there are, I do want to make sure that families understand that not every scholarship is created the same. You need to look closely at the fine print. Okay. So, here are some things to watch out for. How long is the scholarship good for? How many years can you renew? Right? The second is who's the money going to? Is it going to you? Is it going to mom and dad? Is it going to the school? Right? Three, are there any requirements to renew? Right? You have to understand that so that you can make sure that you are getting enough for college. Some of the requirements that are sometimes out there are things like, oh, you need to have a 3.0 GPA, a 4.0 GPA, a 3.5 GPA, you need to be attending full-time, part-time, whatever the kind of requirements are, you need to be following in order to continue getting that scholarship. Okay. Now, I wanted to kind of like lay this out in real terms for you guys so that you guys understand when and which scholarships might be better for you and and like how that can affect what you're paying over the course of, you know, any given year, right? So, I have two scholarships on board here. The first one, it's for 25,000. It's not renewable. It's a one-time scholarship and it's restrictive to students going to public ## Strategic Math... Comparing 25K vs. 10K Over Four Years [12:00] colleges only. Right? So, I mean, I'm based in California. So, let's say you're going to UC Berkeley, that's great. the the the general fees per year at UC Berkeley are about $45,000. Like that's kind of tuition fees, books, housing, food, all in, right? So, you get $25,000 off. You're paying $20,000 that first year. Okay? But looking at it, it's only renewable one time, right? So, you you'll be able to get it that first year, but in the next years, you're not going to be able to get it. Okay? So, you're ending up paying, you know, 25,000, you know, you know, getting a $25,000 discount the first year, but in year two, three, and four, you're not going to have anything. So, it's going to be $45,000 a year. Okay. Scholarship 2, it's 10K, but it's renewable for four years, right, at any college and there's a GPA restriction of 3.0 to be eligible for renewal, right? So, as long as your student is maintaining a 3.0 at school, then you're going to get $10,000 in year 1, 10,000 in year 2, 10,000 in year three, and 10,000 in year four. bringing your net cost each year to $35,000. It is much higher than the $20,000 that you'd be paying in year one for scholarship one, right? But over the course of the four years, you're going to be paying a lot less, right? Uh so you're going to be paying, you know, $15,000 more the first year, but you're going to be paying $10,000 less every single year after. Your net profit on or like net kind of gain on taking scholarship 2 is going to be better. Okay? So again, I wanted to kind of put situations out there because a lot of people are like, "Oh, I got a scholarship. I'm so happy." They don't read the fine print and they say, "Okay, well, you have to pay taxes on this. Like you want a sweep stakes, so uh you have to, you know, you want $20,000, but you have to pay, you know, um you know, this this tax and that tax, and it's a $7,000 tax bill that you have to pay." That doesn't really make sense at the end of the day. Okay? So, make sure that you're reading very very carefully. Okay? Now the other thing that you know we always ask is like who should apply for scholarships right now the answer to this question is very simple but it gets more complicated as we add more nuances to it right but the answer to this basic question is that everyone should be applying for scholarships right doesn't matter if your family makes $10,000 a year or $10 million a year everyone should be making or should be applying for scholarships but right not everyone should accept accept scholarships. Okay? And we'll be talking about that a little bit later as we talk about scholarship displacement. Okay? Now, let me explain a little thing to you. Okay? So, I said everyone should be applying for scholarships, right? Whether your family is higher income, lower income, middle income, right? Everyone should be applying. Okay? But if you are considered, you know, middle income, middle upper income, higher income, right? Scholarships can harm you. Okay? scholarship displacement, right? And I talked about this, I think it was like three, four, five weeks ago, right? But scholarship displacement is the process by which the financial aid granted by ## Scholarship Displacement Explained with UC Berkeley Example [15:00] the college that you're going to be going to lowers their financial aid in order to account for outside scholarships that a student receives. Okay? Now, again, that seems weird, so let's get deeper into it. Right? I'm going to use this picture to try to explain it. Right? So, we start at the initial position, right? That's where we start, right? What we end up getting is the final position, but you'll actually see that there's two different routes to get there. There is the straight line that gets there, and there is one that is a roundabout line to get there, right? The dark blue line is the aid given to you by your college. It's very straightforward. We're going to give you $10,000. That's it. Right? Okay. The sky blue line is the efforts you took to get your scholarships, right? But if you are a middle inome family, if you are a higher income family, right, you're going to end up at the same position, right? It did not help you get any more. So, let me explain that in terms of an actual situation. Okay? So, in order to do that, I'm going to lay the foundation of our example. Okay? The student is going to be going to UC Berkeley. It's close to my house. That's what I'm choosing. The family income is around $100,000 a year. Right now, the student was awarded around $17,000 a year to pay for tuition fees, other things. Right? And the student got a one-time scholarship. It's not renewable, of $3,000 from their local Rotary Club. Okay? Does everyone understand this premise? If you can put a quick yes or why in the chat for me, just so I know that everyone is awake, that'd be great. Okay. All right. Thank you guys for putting it in the chat there. Okay. Thank you for putting in the Q&A. Awesome. Awesome. Awesome. Okay. All right. So, that is the premise of the example that we're going to go into, right? Let me tell you what will happen. Okay. UC Berkeley was going to give you $17,000. They saw the $3,000 come in from a scholarship source. Right? Now, you have to remember the colleges, right? They tell you the max they're going to give you when they give you your award letter, right? So, the max that they were going to give you is $17,000, but they don't need to do that anymore because you got $3,000 from a different source, right? So, they are going to lower their aid to $14,000. Now, you got $3,000 from your scholarship, you got $14,000 from UC Berkeley, right? They add it together and you get to $17,000, right? There is no net positive effect on your situation. It is exactly the same. It's like that straight line in that wobbly line, right? Again, this one took more effort, but this one is the straight line. You could have gotten $17,000 either way, but you took more efforts. And when you accepted it, you actually added problems for yourself. The problem that you added for yourself is that UC Berkeley has now determined that your baseline is set at $14,000. Right now, as I stated above, the Rotary Club scholarship was only good for one year. Your baseline has now been set at $14,000. The net effect after four years is that you have lost out on 3K a year for years 2, three, and ## When a Scholarship Lowers Your Aid Instead of Helping [18:00] four for a total of $9,000. Now, you as the student and as the family, you guys are expected to fill that gap because you filled up the first year. Why can't you fill up the second year or the third year or the fourth year, right? So, hopefully that demonstrates how scholarship displacement works, right? And how it can hurt you. Okay? So really quickly, there seems like to be a question about this example. It says UC Berkeley instate cost of attendance is about $45,000. So wouldn't $3,000 go to the family portion because $17,000 won't cover the whole cost of attendance. So you guys have one of the things that I want family members to or families to remember is that at the UC's, one of the one of their kind of like real big like selling points is that well the the the cost of living, right, is the same wherever you go. It's roughly between 20 and $25,000. Doesn't matter if you're in LA or if you're in Berkeley or if you're in Wisconsin, it's roughly around 20 to $25,000. That's how they colleges calculate it out. The cost of kind of attendance, right, the tuition and fees, that's about 17 $18,000, right? So, the example that you kind of give here, it's about $45,000. So, wouldn't $3,000 go to the family portion? Well, there's always going to be a family portion, right? Um there's very few families that go to a UC for completely free, right? Um, so there will always be a family portion, but they don't necessarily just cut it out of the family portion. That's not what happens, right? So what happens is what this what I just showed you here, right? So they lower your financial aid, right? And they add in, right? Yes. And this person said, "Oh, sad." Right. Yes, it is sad. Which is why I'm telling you guys so that you guys can decide whether or not to take the scholarships if you do get them. Again, there are some families out there, right? Very high-income families. You're not going to be able to get anything from financial aid, right? But your student might be, you know, a really good writer. They want to do some scholarships. Do those because again, that's that's one of the ways that you can lower your overall cost. Okay? But you have to understand what it means if you do take it, right? That's why I ## Pell Grant Rule... Who Gets to Stack Scholarships [20:00] always tell students, we need to see what your financial aid package is first before we decide if we're going to accept anything or not. Okay? So, keep that in mind there. Okay? All right. Um, now again, you might be asking, why should we even apply to scholarships then? Right? So, there are exceptions to the rule. Like I told you, if you are a lower inome family and you qualify for the PEL grant, right? Colleges must legally allow you to stack your scholarships on top of each other. Okay? So, let's say that you are a lower income family. And again, I know that the question is going to be what is considered low-inccome, right? Because again, in the Bay, I live in the Bay Area. Like, oh, if you make 120, you're low income, right? That's just kind of like first world problems, right? uh what they actually consider in California to be kind of like lower income family is a family that makes less than $65,000 a year. Okay. So, um again, if you're a family that makes under that $65,000, you're most likely to be eligible for Pell Grant and you will be allowed to stack your scholarships. So, let's say that you're, you know, you're you're PEL grant eligible, right? Let's say that you got like 40 grand for school, right? Out of $45,000, right? Um and then you got a $5,000 scholarship, a $10,000 scholarship, a $12,000 scholarship. So they'll allow you to stack that on top. So at the end of it, you'll have an extra five, an extra 10, an extra 12 for an extra $27,000, right? That's how it works, right? But that's only for families that are eligible for Pell Grant. So if you get like, I don't know, a,000, you know, a,000 scholarships that are like $100 each, right? Well, then you get all of those and they'll all stack. Okay? So, if you are, you know, a family that is a lower income, just know that your scholarships will be able to be stacked. Okay? It's just people that are over that kind of like $65, $70,000 threshold that will not be able to. Okay? All right. So, quick takeaways here, right? Takeaways, right? Everyone should search for scholarships, right? I always tell families, the student should ## Exceptions for Low-Income Families [22:00] be putting in some work. Just because mom and dad worked hard and kind of built up a nest egg and this and that doesn't mean that your kid shouldn't be putting in work. They should put in work. Make sure that they apply for some, right? Um, but not every family if they get a scholarship will be taking it. There needs you need to balance kind of like what you're getting from school and also what the scholarship that you take will do. Now, if you're in a situation where you only got $5,000 from school in financial aid, like free money, and you got like a $25,000 scholarship uh for four years from a different scholarship that you applied to, then of course we take the $25,000, right? It's there's no question, right? But sometimes there is a question as to like, oh, well, I get this for a certain amount of years. You need to do the math to see what's going to help you over the long run. Okay? Now, scholarships, again, they might be good, right, generally, but they might hurt you in the long run. So again, understand the math, right? And make sure to fully understand the repercussions of accepting different types of outside scholarships and other financial aid, right? Whether that's a loan, right? Whether that's a certain scholarship and how it's going to affect other things, can things stack, right? This and that, so on and so forth. There's a lot of pieces to the puzzle that you do need to make sure that you're keeping your eye on. Okay. Now, I always like to brag a little bit about ourselves at the end of our at at the end of our kind of uh you know, presentations here, right? So again, here they are, right? I have a family, they're making around 350. I was able to get them around 30 $35,000 from various different schools, Chapman, Forom, and University of San Diego. Right? This family, they make around $440,000 a year. I was able to ## Real Family Results... 30K to 42K in Strategic Aid [23:30] get them $42,000 from Baylor, right? And this final family, they're going to a UC, right? I was able to save them just over $30,000, right? They're they got basically a 66% discount on going to a state school, right? Unheard of usually. Okay? So, if you guys are interested in talking to us, right? I I know I went ahead and put like the link in for the college application intensive, but these are links to actually talk to us in person. Okay, if you're interested in financial aid, right, go ahead and use the QR code on the left here, right? You can scan that or you can also text us at 9497750865. Just text money. Okay, if you're interested in our college coaching programs, our college application intensive, right? or our college application service, which I I didn't get to talk about, but I'll talk about in future future kind of presentations. Go ahead and use the QR code on the right or text college to 9497750865. Okay, so I'm going to leave this up so you guys can take uh kind of screenshots or do whatever you need here, but I do see some questions and I want to make sure to answer those. Okay, and if other people do have questions, please make sure to put them in the Q&A or in the chat. I know that some people are shy. You can send it to the Q&A. No one else can see it. You can send it to just hosts and panelists and only I will be able to see it. Okay, so let's go ahead and take a look. I need to take a drink of water here. Uh and let's let's jump into this question. Okay. And it says, are the details of a scholarship, i.e. who it's paid to, whether it's a 1x etc. be clearly listed before you apply? Not necessarily. Which is why you have to ## Should You Apply or Not? How to Decide as a Family [25:00] apply first, see if you get it, and then decide after that, which I know gives your student a little extra work. But like I said, your student should be doing something to go to college, right? Think about back when you went to college, right? You had a part-time job, right? We did this, right? I worked a lot when I was in college. I think I worked like 50 hours a week, right? Not cuz I had to, but because I just felt like I I didn't want to get, you know, like spending money from my parents, right? Um, so I worked at I actually uh used to be a sushi chef, right? Uh, in college. Uh, probably not that good of a one. It was just like at a takeout sushi place. Um, but I worked like 50 hours a week, right? Um, I think part of the reason why I worked at that job was because, uh, the owner let me take all the leftovers home. And so, like we would just have sushi parties at the end of the night. Okay. Uh, but, uh, sometimes the details are there, sometimes they're not, right? So, sometimes you have to apply when, and then if they say, "Oh, where do you want us to send the money?" And if you say, "Yes, please send it to me." And they say, "Sure, no problem." Then you're okay. But if they say, "Oh, yeah, tell us the school you're going to and your student ID number, we'll send it to your account." Then obviously we need to kind of decide if the math makes sense for us. Okay. Uh the second part is do most scholarships get paid to the university student or parent? So generally speaking uh it depends usually on the amount. If it's like a $100, $500, $1,000, sometimes it's just cash or even a check or even a Visa gift card, right? But sometimes if it is a larger amount 5, 10, 15, 20, $25,000, they're going to send it to the actual school because whoever is giving that money out wants the tax write off. So, if it's a larger amount, you can think that it'll almost exclusively go to the school. If it is a smaller amount, you might you might get it in hand or straight into your account. Okay. All right. So, again, I don't see any other questions, so I'm going to go ahead and leave this screen up, right? Oh, actually, I do have another question, right? Uh, so it says, "Do scholarship opportunity announcements and instructions clarify if they're going to send the money to the school?" Uh, so I think I just answered this one. Sometimes they don't. So sometimes you only know after you have won it, right? Or have been selected for that ## Where to Get Help Before Accepting a Scholarship [27:00] scholarship. Okay. Um and that's unfortunate, but it's not like we can really ask them, oh, will I get the money like straight into my account? Because that just is kind of weird, right? So again, sweat equity. Your your your students should be putting it in, right? And so if they aren't, well then you need to find out a different arrangement with them to pay for college because again they shouldn't be eating into your retirement. They shouldn't be eating into your home equity, right? Technically when they hit 18, they're adults. They should be out on their own. They should be doing their own thing, right? I understand times have changed, right? But uh students also should take some responsibility for funding some of their college. Okay. All right. So I'm going to leave this screen up here. If you guys do have questions for me, uh, you can reach out on Discord if you're a coaching family, on Facebook, whatever makes sense for you. But I'm going to leave this screen up so you can either text us, use the QR codes, but please reach out. Do not fill anything out until you talk to me. If you're a 2026, class of 2026 rising senior, do not wait, right? For our families, we start in about mid to late August with doing the first set of kind of things that we need to do for financial aid. So, please set up a consultation ASAP. Okay, so I'll leave that up. Uh, everyone have a great night. If you have any other questions, please let me know and we'll talk again soon. Bye-bye.