Caveat Emptor or Buyer Beware 6: Scholarship Financial Planners

Saturdays we share tips of cautions to facilitate getting scholarships or avoiding problems

Dianne had three daughters. One daughter attended high school. Two daughters still attended junior high school. Dianne wanted her daughters to earn as many scholarships as possible. She doubted her own ability to help them. She believed the school counselors overworked with case loads to large to focus on her daughters. So, she hired a scholarship expert $1,500 to help her daughters find scholarships. She discovered that the expert was just completing applications she could have accessed through Fastweb, Scholarships.com, and other search engines. She called us to complain. Yet, as we discussed her doubts about her own abilities, she decided having that person complete the applications provided a good return on investment—especially when her first daughter earned $68,000 on her $1,500 investment.

Pay Someone to Do What You Can Do for Free

The caution about scholarship experts relates to paying people to do what you can do for free. Some scholarship experts maintain a private list of scholarships, but the Internet makes it hard to hide private sources. So, most experts will apply for financial aid you could have applied to receive. No national certification or licensing exists to govern financial planners who specialize in scholarships and financial aid for school. We recommend you check your Better Business Bureau for any complaints.

Save Your Time by Paying Someone Else

However, you may value paying someone to do what you can do for free. You may find it worth your money because:

• Their repeated experience gives them a professional skill you lack
• They can turn a phrase on the application better than you can
• They know tricks to applying that you don’t
• They can complete applications much faster than you can
• They already know the best search engines or sources of information
• You, or your children, may not have time to complete applications

We will not tell you what to do. We present the pros and cons so that you can make a better decision.

Monday we review College Board source of funding, scholarships, grants, and more