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Since my oldest daughter entered high school in September, I’m going all out to help her hunt for scholarships and aid her in scoring some free money to pay for college.

I figured we’d be getting an “early” start, by looking for scholarships while she’s just now in 9^th grade. Boy, was I wrong!

Little did I know that we’re actually a bit late when it comes to nabbing scholarships, grants and free money to help pay for college.

Here’s some of what I’ve learned lately – and how it can help your family or someone you know with children.

For starters, did you know that there are educational scholarships for kids as young as five or six years old? This blew me away, but it also made me even more determined in the hunt for scholarships. After all, in addition to my first-born daughter, who turned 14 in September, my youngest daughter is about to turn six. I also have an 11-year-old son.

Sure, my husband and I are saving for our kids’ college education with 529 plans. But I’m also realistic enough to know our savings may not be enough considering that the price tag of college has been skyrocketing the past decade – and it’s only heading higher.

In fact, according to the College Board, in the 2011-2012 school year, 123 colleges in the U.S. charged more than $50,000 a year for tuition, room and board alone.

That means all of us parents – with newborns on up to adult children in graduate school – would be wise to learn about all the resources available to pay for higher education expenses.

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Another thing I’ve learned: getting scholarships is largely a numbers game. Not only do you have to be “in it to win it,” but your also have to be committed to applying to a lot of scholarships. Three or four won’t cut it. Encourage your son or daughter to apply for at least a dozen – two dozen is even better – to greatly improve his or her odds of landing one or more scholarships.

Does this mean a lot of time spent on your scholarship search? Yes, absolutely. But the payoff is more than worth it. Getting thousands of dollars worth of scholarships now for your child means you won’t have to do things like tap your 401(k) funds, take out a home equity loan, co-sign for student loans, or use credit cards to pay for various college expenses. It will also keep your kid from racking up college debt.

So if you or your child is serious about winning scholarships, make it a quasi part-time job. Spend at least 15 to 20 hours a week (more, if you can spare it) hunting for scholarships, putting together applications, writing essays, etc. You’ll likely have to do this for several weeks (even if the time is spaced out over a few months).

Successful scholarship winners – and I won a few scholarships of my own back when I attended graduate school at USC – will tell you that you’ll only get out of your scholarship search whatever you put into it.

Finally, utilize Internet based tools to help you streamline your scholarship quest. A website like FastWeb.com is priceless because it’s free to use, saves you time, and it lets you set up a profile and get automatically matched to scholarships that fit your unique circumstances.

If you or your high-school child needs free money soon to cover the cost of tuition, books, supplies, room and board or other college-related expenses, check out the three scholarships below. Two of these scholarships are also open to children as young as five years old:

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Name: Federal Junior Duck Stamp Art Competition

Sponsor: U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, Department of the Interior

Amount: $2,000 to $5,000

Eligibility: Students in grades K-12; U.S. Citizens and resident aliens

Deadline: March 15

Requirement: Students must submit a painting, drawing or sketch of any North American waterfowl species. Each state or district has its own competition and “Best of Show” winners advance to the national competition. One of the 53 Best of Show images will be selected as the next Junior Duck Stamp.

Application: http://www.fws.gov/juniorduck/

Name: Toshiba/NTSA ExploraVision Science Competition

Sponsor: Toshiba and the National Science Teachers Association

Amount: $5,000 to $10,000 savings bond (There are four divisions: grade K-3; grades 4-6; grades 7-9; and grades 10-12; within each divisions there is one first place price, $10,000; and one second place prize, $5,000)

Eligibility: Students in grades K-12; U.S. and Canadians residents

Deadline: January 29

Requirement: Students must create a project (in written and visual form) that showcases their vision of what technology will be like 20 years into the future.

Application: http://www.exploravision.org

Name: Young Naturalist Awards

Sponsor: American Museum of Natural History

Amount: $500 to $2,500 (2 awards for each grade level)

Eligibility: Students in grades 7-12; U.S. and Canadian residents

Deadline: January 3

Info: Students must enter a research-based science essay contest.

Application: http://www.amnh.org/nationalcenter/youngnaturalistawards

This brief sampling of scholarships, of course, is but a drop in the bucket. There are literally tens of thousands of scholarship opportunities that abound for students of all types, ages, skills, interests and abilities.

Don’t think scholarships only go to poor students, minorities, high school kids with “A” grades or the children of alumni. If you are willing to put in the work, I can guarantee you that there are scholarships out there that are tailor made just for you or your child.

Good luck in your scholarship hunt!

“Ask The Money Coach” is a syndicated column written by personal finance expert Lynnette Khalfani-Cox, co-founder of the free financial advice blog, AskTheMoneyCoach.com. Follow Lynnette on Twitter at @themoneycoach.

Students can save up to $18,000 by completeing their college degree in three years.

Spiraling tuition costs have  some students balking at the idea of a traditional four-year degree program. Apparently, schools are responding as colleges and universities begin to implement three-year-degree programs in an effort to help students cut costs and enter the workforce earlier. But how much are students really saving by shaving off a year of college?

“By completing a three-year degree program, students can end up saving about $10,000 in living expenses and $3,000 to $5,000 in tuition at a public college,” says Ken Clark, certified financial planner and author of The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Paying for College (Alpha; $18.95). Clark says even though many schools do not offer these programs, students are finding ways to take on more credits and finish school earlier, including attending summer courses at a community college for a fraction of their university’s price per credit hour. And colleges are starting to take notice.

However, the three-year model is not completely new; it is common in Europe. Now, a number of institutions in the United States are following suit. Since the start of 2010, Arcadia University, Holy Family University, the University of North Carolina at Greensboro, and Ursuline College, have all formalized three-year-degree programs set to begin this fall.

“We recognized the growing concern from families about the cost of higher education,” says Jerry Greiner, president of Arcadia, a private university in Philadelphia. Incoming freshman participating in the program will be of the top tier of entrants given the rigors of such an accelerated program, says Greiner who expects up to 15 students to be part of the program this fall.

“We are purposely selecting students for the program who are highly motivated and who have already demonstrated ability to do really well academically,” says Greiner. “But we also know high ability students will get stressed. We will have advisors working with students meeting regularly with students.”

The three-year degree has piqued the interest of about 350 incoming freshman at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro. Its program, UNCG in 3, is designed for the growing number of high school seniors who enter the university with transferable college credit earned through Advanced Placement (AP) courses and other early college programs. Incoming freshmen with 12 or more credit hours will be eligible to participate.

According to the most recent data from the U.S. Department of Education, in 2001, 4.2% of U.S. undergraduates graduated with their bachelor’s degrees within three years. “By saving one full year of tuition, room and board students will realize savings of about $8, 000,” says Steve Roberson, dean of undergraduate studies.

Provided that a student is highly motivated and dedicated to finishing the coursework, a three-year degree program could save students and families thousands of dollars.

This one-day networking and dinner event, sponsored by eLearners.com, a Web resource that connects prospective students with online classes, offers close to $5 million in full-tuition scholarships through its Project Working Mom 2010 program. Participants can enjoy panel discussions about the importance of educational advancement and work-life balance issues, gain free career coaching, and apply on site for scholarships.

Stephanie Clark

“I personally know many single mothers who have been impacted through the project working mom program and have received scholarships to go back to school to obtain their degrees,” says Stephanie M. Clark, national director of Project Single Moms, who is a working parent and Project Working Mom’s national spokesperson. “Getting their degree results in them becoming more competitive when they are looking for jobs and creates better opportunities for them and their families.”
In 2010, about 285 moms and dads—yes, men can apply for the scholarships, too—will receive money to begin an online program – tuition-free – for one of the following schools: Ashford University, Everest University, Virginia College, Walden University, Capella University, Saint Leo University, Allied Schools, and Ashworth College.

You have the opportunity to participate in any of this year’s last three events, which will be held in Newark, New Jersey, on June 18; in Chicago on August 13; and in Washington, D.C. on September 17. All events are held on Friday evenings from 6:00 p.m. to 10:00 p.m. Click here for more information about the city tours and college scholarships. The deadline to apply for scholarships is Sept. 30, 2010.

“Measuring Up 2008,” a biennial state-by-state report card on higher education published by the National Center for Public Policy and Higher Education, grades states in six overall performance categories including preparation for college, participation, affordability, and completion. The National Center created the first Measuring Up study in 2000.

“Family wealth and income, race and ethnicity, and geography play too great a role in determining which Americans receive a high school education that prepares them for college, which ones enroll in college, and which ones complete certificate or degree programs,” according to the study.

Colleges have become less affordable for American families since the 1990s, primarily because college costs exceed inflation and economic growth. In terms of college affordability, every state except California, which earned a C- for its relatively low costs for public two-year colleges, received an F.

“Just the huge jump in the percentage of family income required to pay for higher education” has earned states failing grades, says Joni E. Finney, an education professor at the University of Pennsylvania who was a project manager and developer for Measuring Up 2008.

More challenges

For the 2007-2008 school year, 25% of middle-income families’ earnings went toward paying tuition at public four-year colleges and universities, up 7% from eight years earlier. On average, working and poor families must pay 40% of their income to enroll a student in a public four-year college compared with 13% of income spent by upper-income families, the study continues.

While college attendance has increased for all groups over the past 30 years, gaps in enrollment among racial and ethnic groups have not disappeared. Only 56% of black and 58% of Hispanic high school graduates enroll in college the next fall, compared with 73% of whites, according to the National Center report.

This divide is wider in some states than others among 18- to 24-year-olds enrolled in college. In Illinois, 45% of whites are enrolled in college compared with 29% of blacks.  The gap is even larger in New York and Connecticut, where 50% of whites and 34% of blacks are registered for college in those states.

These disparities also can be seen in college completion rates. Measuring Up 2008 shows that 59% of white students complete a bachelor degree within six years of enrolling in college. By comparison, 41% of African Americans, 47% of Hispanic students, and 39% of Native American students complete a bachelor’s degree within six years.

Providing an avenue

Evelyn Jones Rich hopes a scholarship named in honor of her late son, Wall Street investment banker and lawyer Gordon Rich, will assist with helping to finance a student’s dream.

The Gordon A. Rich Memorial Foundation awards five high school seniors $50,000 in scholarship money each year. The scholarship pays recipients $12,500 annually to attend an accredited four-year university.  Feb. 28, 2009 is the scholarship application deadline for the 2009-2010 academic year. Gordon Rich died in an automobile accident in 2000.

“The current economic turnabout is sad that I agree that more kids are going to be more aggressively looking for money.  We know what power it has down the road,” says Evelyn Jones Rich, who relied on a full-scholarship when completing her studies at Bryn Mawr College in the early 1950s.

Christopher Brathwaite, a 17-year-old freshman at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, says he felt better knowing he had the scholarship money to help cover the $48,000 tuition at MIT.

“I did worry about how to pay for college,” Brathwaite says, adding that he and his parents took out loans to help cover the remainder of his tuition.