Customer Reviews

How to Go to College on a Shoe String: The Insider's Guide to Grants, Scholarships, Cheap Books, Fellowships, and Other Financial Aid Secrets

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Many parents, including myself, are starting to question if they will be able to send their child to college. In my area, a year of college at the state university tops $25,000, a little less if room and board is eliminated. With four years of college costing what many of us paid for our first houses, not to mention rising fuel costs and soaring heating and electricity bills, college savings have been sidelined in lieu of paying for necessary bills. There are still transportation costs, books and school supplies to consider. How are we going to send our children to college when there is no money in our already tight budgets?

Ann Marie O'Phelan's book can help any family figure out how to make college affordable. In many fields, a college degree is not an option it's a requirement. A recent scan of job postings in my area of Vermont found that even a city bus dispatcher is required to have a minimum of an associate's degree. Without a degree, salaries are much lower and jobs can be hard to find.

How to Go to College on a Shoestring offers sage advice to both student and parent. Besides the handy "Case Studies" that offer tips from those who have been there, the book is divided into ten chapters:

· How Am I Going to Pay for College?

· Applications

· The Numbers Game

· Grants

· Learn Now, Pay Later

· Work It Out!

· The Scholarship Jungle

· Bringing It Home

· Avoiding Trouble

· Living Cheap

What I like most about this handy guide is that it goes beyond finding college loans or grants. You'll find tips on getting into the college of your choice, the pros and cons of getting a job in high school to pay for college and tops on saving money while in college. Students learn how to shop wisely for things like groceries and textbooks.

The author's put a lot of work into her book. She includes a thorough listing of college funding programs for every state and pages of information on financial aid programs available in the U.S., as well as common scams that are circulating.

HOW TO GO TO COLLEGE ON A SHOESTRING is a must-read for every parent and high school aged child. It's packed with important information and handy tips to help keep college costs down and to ensure your child/children are able to attend college.

As a side note, a portion of the proceeds from the sale of this book will be donated to the Humane Society of the United States.

According to experts a college degree can nearly double your annual salary, but the road to acquiring one can be expensive. How To Go To College On A Shoe String offers several ways to pay for college while attending, and offers suggestions on how to decrease the amount of student loans that will need to be paid back after graduation. This educational book does a great job of exploring the advantages and disadvantages of student loans, local community colleges, cooperative education, work study programs, and working while attending college. It emphasizes the importance of taking your SAT's, when to send out applications for financial aid and scholarships, how to organize application paperwork, and how to keep everyday expenses such as textbooks, meals, and transportation to a minimum. In this book you will find countless informative websites, some of which include worksheets to calculate the amount needed for financial aid, and others for lis ts of organizations and the sc holarships they offer. This invaluable reference manual is detailed, organized and reader friendly. After reading How To Go To College On A Shoe String, you will have a better understanding of the college application process and can concentrate on your education and enjoying your college years. I give this book a 4 out of 5 star rating.

The first thing that jumped out at me when I looked at this book is the cutsey, curlie-q text used for the table of contents and chapter headings, and I must admit I was a bit put off. However, cutsey-ness aside, I found this book to be loaded with great information. There's a lot of good common sense information, and there is a lot of detailed information such as web sites and addresses where a student can go to find help, money, jobs, etc.

For anyone looking for ways to afford college, this book is a great resource. A lot of things are covered that the average student might not consider. Not only finding money to go to school, like scholarships and grants and loans, but also ways to cut costs, such as gas-saving tips, ways to save on food expense, health-care costs, and living expenses. There is also a great section on how to avoid scams, which is something I think most college students seeking money need to watch out for.

I also really found the appendices listing a variety of resources to be quite helpful. I would have liked to have seen some of the resource lists by state, but I still felt that the representative sampling given was enough to at least help me to know certain services exist, so I could search for them in my area. The bottom line is that anyone who is looking for any kind of financial assistance for college is going to be helped by this book. It's loaded with information.

Ann Marie O'Phelan, MFA's HOW TO GO TO COLLEGE ON A SHOE STRING is a key acquisition for any collection catering to college-bound students. It provides all the details on how to get scholarships, grants and fellowships to reduce out-of-pocket expenses, covers new alternative ways of financing college, and provides all kinds of tips on how to save money on everything from books to entertainment while in school. Will appeal to general-interest novices.

Diane C. Donovan

California Bookwatch

This is a useful, informative guide and an invaluable resource for both parents and students. It is very detailed and covers everything you need know and provides a lot of information that I haven't seen in other books.

The sections about the ins and outs of financial aid and forms were very useful. The author even talks about how divorced or separated parents should fill out financial aid forms. Other sections discuss grants, scholarships, loans and the pros and cons of working while attending school. I like how he outlines student loan and credit card debt pitfalls and warns about the numerous scams that parents and students encounter. The chapter on living cheap is not only incredibly thorough and realistic, but it's also got some excellent resources for saving on textbooks as well as studying, living and traveling frugally.

I recommend this book. It's well organized and is written in a casual, easy-to-follow style. I especially like his use of case studies that give real-world examples and the Appendix section, which includes six pages of handy, useful links that cover all of the topics discussed in the book. I give it 5 out of 5 stars.

The high point of this book is that it employs case studies to illustrate the diverse college-going experiences available to prospective students. This serves to de-mystify what is, for high school students, terra incognita, while also providing them with some practical options that may be relevant to their specific circumstances. This book is not an adult's guide to sending a child off to college, though, as it's written in a casual style that will appeal to the late teen and does not provide the authoritative voice that his parents might expect. But for the young person planning his or her college career, it provides a broad, useful overview of the various challenges of financing a college education these days, and offers a generous list of resources and tangible advice.

How to Go to College on a Shoe String is a very timely and much needed book. I would rate it a very firm five. This book holds information that everyone needs to read. The book offered practical suggestions to helping with the costs of higher education. I would suggests this book to anyone and use it as a graduation gift. The fact that in the first chapters it offers a "how to read this book" section, for those of us that are short on time, shows just how user friendly this book is. This book is very useful and informative on the financial aid crisis that we all face.

Ann Marie O'Phelan gives money-saving tips to the average college student in her new book How to Go to College on a Shoe String. O'Phelan has a Masters in fine arts, and knows a number of ways to utilize the resources provided to college students, and get an education without a lot of money.

In her book, O'Phelan shows that reader that there are a number of ways to help fund a college education, regardless of your financial status. She systematically goes through the processes required to obtain the grants, scholarships, and fellowships to cover costs. She also offers a number of tips for reducing the amount of money spent on expensive items such as books and supplies.

I would highly recommend this book to any student preparing for college. Even if you have already obtained all of the loans you need, O'Phelan will show you how to keep your cost of living low so that you can focus all of your time and energy on school. How to Go to College on Shoe String is well-written, easy to read, and definitely worth the time and money.

I have 2 in college, one one the way so I was very interested in the book, but didn't expect to read much that was not common sense or I already knew. I was pleasantly surprised to find that not only is is packed with great information, in a very light read - it has quite a bit of great information and advice which i had not thought of, did not know about or had not considered.

I am not convinced I can get 3 kids through college on a shoestring, but I can certainly do it quite a bit cheaper thanks to this informative and enlightening book. If you have kids on the way to college (or adults), this book is money well spent.

As a parent of four children who are all of college age or recently graduated, I found this book to be jam-packed with information. The author has done a great job of listing and organizing all the areas that influence how much a college education will cost. There is in-depth analysis of such things as choosing the right college, filling out applications, applying for financial aid, filing a FAFSA, and searching for scholarships and grants. There are lists of useful websites and books that are good sources of information for students and their parents alike. The book has a full appendix, so that it can be used as a reference guide both before and during a student's college career.

I particularly appreciated the cautionary information in the book. Students are warned about the dangers of getting more loans for school than what is absolutely necessary, the overuse of credit cards, and the possibility of identity theft from so called "easy money" or scholarship search companies. Young people are infamous for not listening to their parents who try to warn them about such things. The fact that they read the very same things in a well-researched book can only help to reinforce the advice they get from home.

If you or your child will be heading off to school any time in the next three years, I recommend How to Go to College on a Shoe String. You will glean knowledge that can make higher education more affordable and less stressful than you thought possible.