Finding Your Scholarships

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Hi, I'm Rob West. I'm talking about scholarships, of course. Every year, public and private institutions dole out about $8 billion in scholarships. Are you getting any of it? I'll talk about how you can, and then it's on to your calls at 800-525-7000.

That's 800-525-7000. This is Faith and Finance, biblical wisdom for your financial decisions. So no question about it, college is expensive. The College Board reports that in 2024, in-state students at public four-year schools are spending an average of $11,260 on tuition and fees.

That's just for one year and doesn't include room and board. Students at private four-year colleges are spending over $41,500 on tuition and fees alone. With those expenses, it's not surprising that the average student owes close to $30,000 when leaving school, but you don't have to be the average student. Many organizations are willing to help you pay for college through scholarships if you meet their qualifications. My wife, Julie, had her own application assembly line going, and she was able to land $170,000 in scholarship money.

Of course, that took a lot of work, but look at it this way. You can either put in the time and effort now applying for scholarships, or you can borrow and work very hard later to pay it back. I'm hoping that you'd rather do the work now, so I'll give you the names of online sources for scholarship money, and we'll put links to them in today's show notes at faithfi.com. So, you ready to get started?

Here we go. Our first resource for scholarship money is FastWeb. They host more than 1.5 million scholarships totaling nearly $3.5 billion. To get started, you create a profile at fastweb.com. A search feature helps match you to scholarships that meet your individual needs.

It also keeps track of where you've applied, a handy feature. Now, the College Board is best known for testing materials, things like the SATs and other exams, but they also want to help you pay for college once you get there. On their site, you can apply for scholarships and internships. They have leads to about 2,200 programs offering nearly $6 billion in college aid every year.

Another great site is niche.com. Like the name implies, they help you find not only money, but also colleges that cater to your specific major and interests. And of course, there's scholarships.com. They have a huge database with more than 3.5 million scholarship and grant opportunities totaling almost $20 billion. You can browse by category or set up a profile to help you find scholarships specific to your interests. CapEx is another great resource. They have leads on $11 billion in scholarship opportunities. Their site also has a tool to help you calculate the odds of getting into a school of your choice even before you apply. Chegg is another good one.

That's C-H-E-G-G. They're best known as an online textbook store, but they also have great articles about finding and applying for scholarships and grants. Turns out they're different things.

Who knew? Knowing the difference could help you land one. Now, keep in mind that a lot of these scholarship opportunities are merit-based, meaning the higher your grades, the better your chances of landing that kind of scholarship. But what if you're more athletically inclined?

Well, there's a site to help with that. Unigo lets you search for athletic scholarships, as well as a wide variety of funding opportunities offered by specific schools and companies. And let's not forget about Peterson's, which is best known as a clearinghouse for information about colleges and universities. They also host about $10 billion in scholarship opportunities. Now, this one's interesting because we usually associate federal aid with borrowing, but the Labor Department sponsors a website called Career One Stop, which allows you to search more than 8,000 scholarships, fellowships and grants. And that's money you won't have to pay back.

One final idea? Check with the financial aid office at whichever schools you apply to. Sometimes they have scholarship money available too. OK, so we've thrown a lot of scholarship sites at you and you probably won't use all of them, but you should definitely try at least a couple. Look for some that you find the easiest to work with or that best match your needs.

Many of them will have other features that you might find handy. And again, we'll have links to all of them in today's show notes at faithfi.com. All right. Your calls are next. Eight hundred five, two, five, seven thousand. That's eight hundred five, two, five, seven thousand.

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That's GiveShoesToday.org. Well, thanks for joining us today on faith and finance. I'm Rob West. We've got lines open. We're ready for you today. We'd love to hear from you at eight hundred five to five. Seven thousand. We've got about five lines open at the moment. Eight hundred five to five.

Seven thousand. You can call right now. Let's dig in.

We'll begin in Indianapolis today. John, go ahead, sir. Yes, Rob.

Thanks for taking my call. You've answered this question several times in the past months. Listing on off about online banking or savings accounts. So somebody will earn more interest than typically you are checking accounts, but something with no fees, no minimums. And I know you made some recommendations and it was never applicable to allow to my wife and I. So we'd like to start something where we can put some money into that kind of thing to earn some interest, but better than them are typically are just our bank.

Yeah, very good. So what I generally recommend is that you hang on to that brick and mortar banking relationship that you have for your checking account. Maybe that, you know, continues to be your operating account. But especially in this environment right now that we're in where interest rates, the Fed funds rate is still high. There's adverse effects of that when we're borrowing, but it does benefit us on the saving side because we're able to get a little bit better rate of return. But there is a pretty stark comparison between, you know, what the traditional brick and mortar bank will pay at maybe a quarter of 1% or less and what we'll get from the online banks where they don't have to pay for the large staff of the brick and mortar banks. They don't have any real estate operations with local branches, and so they're able to pass all that on in the form of higher interest rates. You know, the only concern some folks will have when they hear online bank, they'll think that that might kind of raise the risk level.

And I would challenge that. I mean, anytime you're doing business online, whether it's logging into your brick and mortar bank to do bill pay or, you know, to transfer money or to, you know, make a payment electronically, you're exposing yourself to essentially the same risks that you would have with doing business with an online bank. And you still need to use those best practices of strong passwords change regularly and not clicking on links in emails and not logging in over public Wi Fi, things like that. The only perhaps increased risk is just based on the size of the bank. If the bank were to fail, it doesn't happen often, but it certainly has. That's where you would want the FDIC insurance because the US government would essentially step in by way of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation and guarantee those deposits, make sure they remain liquid so you can, you know, take a deposit, get the money out if you need it, and to know that it's protected.

So I'm completely comfortable with that right now. High yield savings is still fairly attractive that you know, you can find them between four and a half and 5% today with FDIC insurance with no minimums. And with a, you know, five star rated bank, I would go to the website that I mentioned frequently, and that is bankrate.com bankrate.com right there at the front of the page, you'll see several links, one of those will be for high yield savings, and they will essentially show you those online banks. And you'll recognize many of the brands that are offering the most compelling interest rates today, it'll give you an opportunity to read through kind of the pros and cons in terms of, you know, why they're rated the way they are might be customer service, it might be any number of issues that usability of the website.

But I think you establishing an online savings account with one of those, again, linking it electronically to your existing brick and mortar checking account, banking institution, and then being able to move money back and forth periodically as you need it, makes a lot of sense because, you know, even a $10,000 investment over the next year is going to yield $500. And that's $500 you're giving up if you don't do it. But does that all make sense to you? Yes, it does. Yes, it does. Okay, bankrate.com and then pursue the high yield savings accounts. That's exactly right.

You can choose the one that's the best fit for you and then get that account open and you'll be off to the races. Marvelous. Thank you, sir. All right. God bless you. We appreciate your call today very much. Let's go out to Texas. Hi, Paula, go ahead. Thank you so much for taking my call.

I'm trying to keep it concise. Recently, my online savings account was compromised and I found out about it through a, they were trying to do a wire transfer out of it. But prior to that, they were doing just a transfer from my account to JP Morgan. And the only way I found out about it was I had had an email with a letter from my online savings account company. And they had done that $5,000 wire transfer five times already. I don't know how I can protect myself since I didn't get an alert about it just being a transfer.

So now I'm having to go through, you know, the fraud dispute and try to get my money back. So do you have any recommendations on being able to protect yourself with these online accounts? I have heard that they're safe.

Yeah, well, it's a good question. And it's not isolated, of course, to online banks, because any financial account, whether it's attached to a brick and mortar bank that just gives you an online access point like they all do these days, or it's purely an online bank where you're still accessing the account largely through a smartphone app or the Internet, but they just don't happen to have brick and mortar locations. They all present the same challenges, which is just how do you protect yourself? And I think the key is number one, following those best practices to, you know, make sure you have a long string password that you're updating, probably, you know, if not more often, at least quarterly, maybe use a password keeper that's going to generate the password for you. So you have a different password for each account. That's a best practice. And then secondly, I think, you know, just talking to the company, making sure that they, you know, had good customer service, and they're willing to, you know, identify these issues when they happen.

You may even need to change your account number, although typically just changing the password will cover it. But you know, are they quick to resolve these disputes and get your money back into the account? You know, are they big national or, you know, institutions that have the all the latest and greatest safeguards and protections?

Nobody's foolproof. The U.S. government, you know, the big, you know, credit reporting agencies, they've all been compromised. I mean, the biggest companies and governments in the world have had accounts compromised.

So we're not going to stop that. The key is just, you know, are you doing everything you can do and do you have a trusted partner in your financial institution that's going to work on your behalf in an expedient fashion and, you know, get you made whole? Have you changed your, you know, information and passwords and so forth?

And do you believe this has been kind of rectified, at least for the time being? Yes, they did change my account number. I've changed my password. What is the password keeper that you're talking about?

Yeah, so there's several of them out there. I use one called 1Password, the number one password. There's another one called LastPass, last P-A-S-S, but essentially it's an encrypted software application that you'd keep on your computer or your phone and it stores all of your passwords. But what it will do is generate passwords for you. And some of these are built in now in your operating system, like Apple has these now in the Apple operating system. But essentially what it does is rather than you having the same password across all of your logins that can, once it's compromised, get out there on the dark web and now, you know, it's more easy for people to access your accounts. It essentially would allow you to have a long string, unique password for every login. Well, you'd never want to type those in or try to memorize them.

You couldn't. And that's where a password keeper comes in because you're able at that point to, you know, just generate that password from that software package and it's all encrypted. So you may want to check those out. But we appreciate your call today, Paula. I'm sorry you're having to go through this, but we'd love to be able to help you. And hopefully that advice is giving you some things to go on. God bless you.

Back with more questions after this. and have been trained to offer biblical financial advice. To find a certified kingdom advisor in your area, visit faithfi.com and click find a CKA. As a faithful listener of the faith and finance program, you know that there is life changing financial wisdom in God's word to meet all your needs. More than anything, FaithFi is here to help you and millions of others see God as your ultimate treasure. As a nonprofit, we're grateful for our partners that help expand our outreach every month with their generosity. Has God provided financial answers for you through this ministry? Please consider becoming a monthly partner by visiting faithfi.com and clicking give. Great to have you with us today on faith and finance for taking your calls and questions.

We may have room for one or two more calls beyond those that are currently holding at 800-525-7000. So let me mention before we head to Plant City and talk to Jeff, if you haven't checked out the FaithFi app, our new version, FaithFi 4.0, which is available right now in your app store, is a beautiful new update to the app in terms of the design and layout, but also the functionality, a lot of new features in the money management system, which is built on Larry Burkett's envelope system, but right there in the palm of your hand. Julie and I use it every day to manage our spending, but also the FaithFi community that's there, all the great content. Check it out if you haven't already. You can head to your app store and search for FaithFi, or you can download it or learn more on our website at faithfi.com.

Just click app. All right, let's head back to the phones. Jeff is waiting in Plant City, Florida. Go ahead, sir. Hey, Rob, how's it going? Doing great.

I've been listening to you for many years and started listening to Larry Burkett back in 1992. Got a copy of how to manage your money. That's awesome.

I love it. What I need to help is I'm trying to help mom. Dad passed away about three years ago and I have to point to help mom invest her money correctly. She's 81 and she's got about half a million in cash. She sold a couple of rental houses and she's got about that much in IRA and other accounts in Schwab, and then she owns her home. So my question is, you always said get about three different people and interview them when you're looking for a financial advisor. What questions do I need to ask those financial advisors during that interview?

Yeah, it's a great question, Jeff. I mean, I'm delighted to hear she's in sounds like a pretty strong position, got about a million dollars between cash and retirement accounts, owns her home. I suspect she lives pretty modestly. So she's in a great position to have an advisor that understands her values and is a good match for her and could manage this money.

I suspect fairly conservatively to meet her goals and just allow her to live out what God has for her over the rest of her life. Two things, one is at faithfi.com when you click find a professional and you go through the questions and get a list of CKs in your area right there at the top, it'll say download questions, interview questions. And that PDF there that's a free download could be a great tool for you to look over with just a list of just what you're asking for questions to use to interview an advisor. If I were to kind of boil those down to what I would want to know, I'll just give you a few off the top of my head.

I think the first one is not really a question. I would just want as I'm talking to that advisor and the three of you are together, let's say, I would want there to be a genuine curiosity that's very apparent to you on the part of the advisor regarding your mom. That he or she is spending a lot more time asking questions about you and about your mom than they are selling their services. And that they really just want to know about them and where this money came from and kind of how she's wired and what she's looking to accomplish and what God's doing in her life and what are her values and convictions and things like that.

That would be, I would hope when you're leaving there, you would say, wow, he or she was just really curious about mom. Second, how they get paid. Third, I would want for you to ask, tell me about your typical client and do we fit?

Because here's what you're looking for there. I mean, is this advisor's typical client five million plus and with a million dollars and maybe only a half a million to manage, you know, you're well below the typical client or are you kind of right in the core client base? I think alongside that is, are you going to be the advisor that's actually going to serve us or will we be handed off to somebody else?

Not that that's a bad thing. You just want to know it. I would also want to know, how are you going to communicate with us? And hopefully the advisor will say, well, I'll communicate however you want.

I mean, do you want to come in face to face? A lot of times folks that are a little bit older, you know, they don't want to do a Zoom meeting. They want to sit down, you know, two times or maybe as many as four times a year and just look the advisor in the face and get a checkup. Others will say, no, I once a year is fine and we can do it, you know, over the Internet through a Zoom call. And then finally, I would just say, you know, you probably want to know what should mom expect in terms of both return and volatility for a typical portfolio with somebody who has the same risk profile and goals that she does as an 81 year old widow.

And just try to get an idea of what your expectation should be or, you know, on the type of portfolio that the advisor will build for you. So those are, you know, it's not necessarily a comprehensive list, but those are just a few things that come to mind. Does that make sense?

It does. Yep. I've talked to one of them with Schwab and she's already with Schwab until we called them. We had a friend who's using one of them and they've got a special program if you're over half a million that you can go on a special program. And basically they take about, I think, eight tenths of a percent or close to one percent. Is that in line with what an advisor usually gets paid about one percent per year? It is.

The question is for what? You know, is this a fiduciary where they have an obligation to put your mom's interests first? And are they going to be actively managing it? Or is this a kind of a, you know, a call in line where you really don't have a trusted relationship?

And it's more of a passive strategy. In that case, I think it would be a little expensive if this is, you know, a true advisor relationship where they're taking discretion, acting as a fiduciary, managing the money, being there to, you know, manage it. The money being there to serve your mom whenever she needs them and kind of serve as her advisor along the way. Then, yeah, it's perfectly appropriate. OK, yeah, we did a Zoom call with the gentleman and he would be the advisor and we can check in with them, you know, once a recorder and he won't do anything without us.

But and they say they'll look at things other also like getting tax protection and trying to look at the whole picture, not just investments. Yeah, OK. And I know there's two certified kingdom advisors within about 50 miles of her house. So, OK, just want to do the right thing. Yeah, very good. Yeah.

Obviously, they're in Plant City and is probably not a terribly densely populated area. So I'm glad to hear there are at least a couple and you could certainly, you know, interview them alongside anybody else you're talking to. And let's just ask the Lord to give you all some some discernment and peace of mind about who's the right fit moving forward. But hopefully that helps you, Jeff. Thank you.

And I just want to tell you one other thing. I found a great resource called DepositAccounts.com. And it's just a place where you can go and find different rates of banks nationwide into your state or nationwide with CDs or deposit accounts. It's kind of like reward checking.

But I found some great CDs that are over five percent, like for three, four, five years. Well, cool. It's kind of an independent resource.

Yeah, I love that. Well, we'll check it out. DepositAccounts.com. I'll have my team look at it. You know, we often recommend Bankrate, but we're always open to new resources and we don't have any incentive to recommend one over the other.

So wherever you can get the best information. Thanks for your call, Jeff. We appreciate it.

I'm so glad you joined us today. You know, before we go, let me remind you, we trust the Certified Kingdom Advisor designation for biblical financial advice. If you're looking for an advisor that shares your values, that can bring the counsel of Scripture to bear in professional financial decision making, you can find a CKA in your city when you go to FaithFi.com and click Find a Professional.

Again, that's FaithFI.com and click Find a Professional. Well, on behalf of my entire team, Taylor, Jim and Devin, I'm Rob West. We're so glad you were with us today. I hope you'll come back and join us next time for another edition of Faith and Finance. God bless you. Faith and Finance is provided by FaithFi and listeners like you.