Saving money for college: a guide

The state of parents' wallets after paying for college tuition (Aiden Damasco / The Puma Prensa)

By Aiden Damasco, Staff Writer

College acceptance season is here, and it’s time for you to open your pockets to pay off those college fees. But if you only have a few quarters and a piece of gum in your wallet, there are still plenty of ways to pay them off without putting you and your family in debt.

The first step is to apply for Free Application for Student Aid (FAFSA), which is a direct application to the United States Government of Education. By submitting a request for student aid, you will be eligible to apply for financial aid and receive support depending on your situation at home and your parent/guardians’ yearly income. This year, the deadline to apply for FAFSA is on 30 June.

For undocumented and Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) students, they can receive scholarships and money through the California Dream Act Application, which is similar to FAFSA, and can give substantial financial assistance.

However, sometimes FAFSA is not enough, which is where scholarships come in, which also offer financial aid to eligible students. There are two types of scholarships, merit-based and need-based. Need-based scholarships generally give money depending on the amount of money you receive from FAFSA; however, depending on the scholarship, the funds you receive will still be a sizable amount.

Meanwhile, merit-based scholarships are awarded to students whose actions are deemed exceptional. This may be through a student’s achievements in academics, athletics, arts, or various other specific areas. The National Merit Scholarship Corporation, the organization that offers the most prestigious scholarships, claims that in 2027, the 7,590 awards they will give “will have a combined value of over $33 million,” or roughly $4300 per person on average. 

Applying to scholarships depends on the criteria of the scholarship, so it is best to see what their requirements are first. Most merit-based scholarships are free to apply to, so it does not hurt to try and see what you can get into. In special cases, you may even receive more money from the scholarships you receive than what you pay for tuition at college.

The most famous need-based scholarship is offered by Cal Grants. They are designed to help lower class (who receive Cal Grants A) and middle class individuals (who receive Cal Grants B), and depending on one’s economic status and their GPA, they receive the proper amount of aid.

If you plan on attending college in the University of California (UC) system, then your best bet for merit-based scholarships is to apply for Regent Scholarships. These are the most prestigious of the scholarships that are offered by UCs, and according to UC Irvine, some benefits from regent scholarships “include a monetary honorarium, on-campus housing guarantee[s], and university transcript annotation[s] designating [the] special honor.”

If these ways don’t provide enough money, or if you just want to go out of state for college, there is a way to do that too. The Western Undergraduate Exchange is a great way to save money while going to college. This program is in many colleges across 16 western states, including locations here in California, and if the school you apply to offers it to your major, in some cases you pay less to go out of state than to stay in state.

Alternatively, you can spend your first two years of college in Santa Rosa, right here at the Santa Rosa Junior College. The classes at the SRJC are free, and the SRJC is consistently rated as one of the best JCs in all of the United States. By applying as a student at the SRJC, you not only pay for tuition for your first two years of college, but as a result, your student debt will also be much less. In addition, you can eventually transfer into other colleges after two years of the SRJC, which usually leads to higher acceptance rates and results.

Whatever the case may be, the Puma Prensa hopes that you succeed in life past high school and not rack up student debt!