Financial Feminist - 294. How to Graduate College Debt Free with Jocelyn Pearson

Episode Date: August 4, 2026

College is expensive, but there's money on the table that most families never touch. Today's guest walked away from college completely debt-free, not because she was a straight-A student or a star athlete, but because she treated scholarships like a system instead of a luck-based lottery. Jocelyn Pearson, founder of The Scholarship System, has since helped families across the US secure almost $17 million in scholarships. We get into the myths keeping families from even trying, why the small-dollar scholarships matter more than the $100K ones, how to build reusable application materials so you're not starting from scratch every time. If you've got a student headed to college (or you're the student), this one is required listening. Jocelyn’s links: Free webinar: https://thescholarshipsystem.com/financialfeminist  Scholarship Superpower Quiz: thescholarshipsystem.com/financialfeministquiz  Not sure what to do with your money? Visit ⁠https://herfirst100k.com/ffpod⁠ and take our FREE quiz to get your personalized money plan, and find any resources mentioned on our show! 00:00 Intro 01:18 Jocelyn's $126K Scholarship Story 03:41 Why Strategy Beats Luck 04:13 The 4 Biggest Scholarship Myths 07:18 The Real Reason Families Don't Apply 10:51 The "All or Nothing" Mindset 13:43 Building a Reusable Essay System 16:32 Other Reusable Application Assets 17:13 What Committees Are Really Looking For 21:05 How to Talk About Your Major 21:59 Who Wins When Two Finalists Are Equal 23:31 How (and How Not) to Use AI 27:35 The Overlooked Small-Dollar Scholarships 33:28 Department Scholarships & Asking for More 33:30 When Your Financial Situation Changes 35:21 Navigating the Middle-Income Gap 47:47 The Student Loan Forgiveness Reality Check 49:52 The True Cost of Co-Signing 52:54 The #1 Trait of Successful Scholarship Families 54:53 Jocelyn's Free Resources & Quiz Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

College is expensive, of course, but there are still ways to graduate debt-free. And turns out students are leaving millions of dollars on the table and they don't even know it. Here's how to find those scholarships, how to stand out, and how to make sure you have a scholarship system rather than working from scratch every single time. Today on the show, we are talking about scholarships. And while we've discussed this before, never this much in depth. We're talking about finding scholarships that you don't even know about, making sure that you have the application that stands out and creating a system so you're not creating a new application

every single time and spending thousands of hours on scholarships when you could be doing anything else. Today's guest, Jocelyn Pearson, graduated college completely debt-free, and it wasn't because she was a straight-A student, a star athlete, or from a low-income family, because she was a middle-income kid who figured out that scholarships are not about luck, they're a strategy problem. Today, the scholarship system that she created has helped families across the U.S. secure almost $17 million in college scholarships. This episode is actionable, so helpful for anybody going through the college application process, whether that is families or students, and you're going to want to share this with anybody going through it right now. Let's get into it. But first, a word from our sponsors.

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more time connecting brands with the moments and fandoms that matter most. Learn more at Accenture.com slash Spotify. Okay, Jocelyn, you got $126,000 in scholarships, but you weren't a straight-a student, you weren't an athlete, you didn't have any connections, so what did you actually have? Oh, my goodness, I don't want to sound too cheesy, but I'm going to say a system. I was an entrepreneur without realizing it. I had an entrepreneurial mindset with this.

I also had a big why. I think that you and I could definitely get on the page of, we need a why behind doing anything that's challenging, and I'm not saying that scholarships are push an easy button, and boom, all this money shows up. I have to give a shout out. I know that Dave Ramsey's touchy here, and I know that you have your own episodes just on him.

But I will say one pro that came out of him was he made me absolutely freaking terrified of debt. Of debt? Absolutely terrified. I mean, he's great at that. He's very effective at that. Yeah, almost to a fault, right? Where it could be useful for some people. Maybe too scary, but yes.

I guess I was 16, and I had a teacher that made us watch. We had, you know, that final week of school, there's nothing to do, made us watch financial peace university, made me absolutely terrified of debt. And so student loans was just not even an option. So that Y kind of gave me that fire and that entrepreneurial. approach, then gave me, once I started seeing some wins, kind of this, okay, that worked, that didn't work, and it created a system. And so the thing is, and I'm sure we'll get into this, I didn't get $126,000 and one big win, right? We hear about students that got $30 million

from every top school in the nation. That was not me. I was what I like to call a mere mortal when it came to paying for college, an average student. And so I had to go at it and chip away at what I needed. So I was chipping away at this dollar amount that I needed because I didn't just get it in one big win. And so what it looked like was I got enough to cover freshman year. And then some of them rolled over and then I got enough to cover the gap for sophomore year and so on and so forth. So I actually slowly amassed my way to six figures and scholarships. And I know some people hear this and they say, okay, that sounds like a lot of work. But actually, once I got that system in place and once I got some winning materials under my belt, I actually got to where I was winning almost

every other scholarship I submitted. So it really was this rinse and repeat, and I just got better as I kept doing it. And so even though the dollars increased, my wins increased each year, my efforts decreased exponentially. And of course, I did have some, I always kept a part-time job. I definitely had one or two involvements that I could speak to. So I'm not saying I had nothing. you've got to have something to go off of. But by no means was I, one of those students that got, had universities falling over their feet to offer me something. Well, and we found that Sally May

discovered that 40% of families didn't use scholarships. And the top reason was they didn't think they would win. Like, it's not that they don't qualify. It's that they don't think they're going to get chosen. So that's not an information problem. What is that problem? Yeah, right there, that is a constant. confidence problem. And actually, anyone that's attended, any of my live trainings, free trainings,

I often say my number one job is to give hope, to give you the belief that this is even possible because so many people remove the opportunity before they even begin. We have four myths that we can really break this down to. So a lot of people eliminate themselves because they say we've missed the boat. It's too late. Or I love the other. one. It's so funny. My senior families and later say we miss the boat. My junior families say, oh, it's too early. We'll get there. And there's never this school year between where they say it's, it now's the time to do scholarships. I always joke. I'm like, where did this school year go where you guys think we finally have time? And so one of the biggest ones is that myth. It's as far as timing.

It's too late or it's too early. And I will say that actually, let me get rid of the too early one quickly. There are scholarships out there for as young as four years old. They draw a picture. Obviously, this is far and few between, but it's still out there. And we've had siblings do this with their their senior sibling and start bringing in money sophomore year in high school. So it's never too early. I love early where it gets the worm here. But that said, it's also never too late. Like I mentioned, I was winning all throughout college. I kept on applying and I got more and more money. I wanted to study abroad. I found scholarships for that. I got more money. And I actually cashed my final check on the way home from college graduation, not high school

graduation. So that's one of the first biggest myths where people just say, oh, we miss the boat, right? It's too late. It's too early. Another one is, well, we're not going to win the Coca-Cola's. We're not going to win these big scholarships. So why us? I didn't either.

I found small dollar ones that added up. That's where I joke, you know, the ones for us mere mortals. And so if we know where to look, it's about finding what our student can win. It's not about winning the ones that have 100,000 applicants, right? So if you have an exceptional student, go for it. You know, the sky's the limit. But for most students, we need to find those lower hanging fruit ones. And then the third one is, you know, it's going to take way too much time.

We don't have time. And again, that goes into the system, right? even hearing me. Yeah, it was a lot of work maybe up front, but once I got that system in place, I could rinse and repeat. When we think about like all of the things you just chatted about, like, you're already acknowledging a lot of the misconceptions and I want people to not miss it. So you were saying first that it is never too early and it's never too late. So anytime is the perfect time, but we have to get started. The second one, yeah, you can go after the big ones, but you're probably better off spending your time thinking about how do I get $2,000

here or $4,000 here rather than $25,000 in all one go. And I think that comes back to a very similar thing that I hear generally in personal finance, which is I didn't start investing soon enough. So I have millions of dollars when I retire. It's not worth it at all. Like that's the thing I hear all of the time is it's like, oh, I'm starting too late. You know, I'm 40 years old. Or I can only save $200 a paycheck rather than $2,000. So what's the point? And I say to those people, as well as any student or soon-to-be student listening, wouldn't you like to have just $5,000 less of debt? Right? You might not be able to pay for all of college on scholarships. I know I couldn't, but I got a $2,500 scholarship, I remember, through a very specific organization. I'll shout him out.

B-E-C-U in Seattle. They're a credit union here in Seattle, and I, along, I think, with like 30 other people of my year, were able to win that scholarship. I got $2,500. Doesn't sound like a lot, but that was $2,500. I didn't have to worry about earning or my parents didn't have to worry about contributing, or I didn't have to worry about getting from somewhere else. So that all-or-nothing mindset, I think is really what we're battling here is either, oh, I do it perfectly or I don't do it at all. I do it at exactly the right time, or I've missed the boat. or it's either, you know, $150,000 plus the scholarships all in one fell swoop, or it's not worth it at all. And what you're telling us so powerfully is it's absolutely worth it. Absolutely. You know, it's so funny. Just yesterday we did, we call our families Rebel families, and we did a Rebel family rally. And one of our families got an extra $5,000 a year already. So I said to them, I was like, okay, that's incredible. Now let's. multiply that by 40. This was a recurring one. So $20,000. Now let's take that into what the loan payment would be. That actually just removed roughly, just a quick rough, $200 a month. Imagine a couple years.

A couple of years. Yeah. And on average, it takes 21 years to pay off debt. So in reality, we're talking about a lot longer than what they say it's going to be. So when I broke that down, and they were like, holy cow, like, that is a difference. Maybe it's not a free ride, but we just knocked off $200 a month. I kind of, I also joked, you know, like, that is going to buy you like an 18 pack of eggs. No, but that's what we're talking about here. Absolutely. So you have created this system, and we love systems here on this show,

because I think that's the other misconception is that these scholarships are going to be really difficult to win. I know when I was a student, I remember, wasn't too, too long ago, having to sit down and be like, oh my gosh, I have to fill out a whole new application. And I have to figure out what's the like pitch and angle for this story. And I just remember it being, there was one, I don't even know if it's still around, the duct tape prom dress scholarship. Do you know the one I'm talking about? I'm sure you do.

Like, oh my gosh, am I going to have to make my prom dress out of duct tape, which is a real thing, look it up? But like, how do we actually create and understand the system where this can, can just be plug and play for us. I'm going to tie this back. So one of the other myths is around, we have to be the perfect student. My student has to be this perfect 4.0 superstar athlete.

And I think part of, or I know, part of building the system is around figuring out what that angle is, but the beautiful thing is oftentimes we figured out once. And when we nail it, it's a matter of kind of reapplying, rinse and repeating it to different prompts. For example, in our essay lessons in the scholarship system, we talk about, we run one story through three completely different prompts.

But that story, we really want to nail, right? That's where we have something called scholarship superpowers. And I can share a link, actually. It's free. It's a quiz. It's so insightful for parents working with their student and for students trying to figure out what they're kind of, what's going for them when it comes to what committees look for. So it kind of speeds up this process of like, well, what is my selling point?

But once we can nail that, once we realize, okay, fine, I'm not competing against those perfect Harvard students, but maybe I am passionate about agriculture and I am going to be stellar speaking to that because it is my passion. And so when I'm going for scholarships and I'm competing against other agriculture students, I do stand out. Figuring out what we do have going for us, that's where a good chunk of the work is. But then creating a system around it, okay, now what materials can we create? Of course, we need a standard essay. That's going to be our basic story. I really love when families actually find a real scholarship that has a question and builds an essay to that. But if we want to just go ahead and get started, a common one that we could think of is what is a challenge that we've overcome? Right? That's a very common question. But even if they don't prompt for that, what if we asked it in a different way? Like, what's an experience that helped you grow in? Why? What do you want to be in why?

Or why this university? So if I know this big challenge that I've overcome, I can probably use that to answer every other question I just mentioned. And this is where systems come into place, right? This is where the magic can happen and where that effort can really drastically decrease. But again, we've got to overcome that myth of, well, I'm not that perfect student, and we've got to find what we do have going for us. So hopefully that answers your question around, you know, how we can start systemizing. But getting at that core story is one of the most solid, important steps to see success with scholarships. Well, and that sounds like what you refer to as like, you know, the reusable assets that every student is building once,

what other reusable assets are we talking about here? So we have our core story that's so helpful. What else can we do to kind of plug in play even if the application or the process is different every time? Yes. So of course the About Us information. And this is where parents can really help. So I know that you've got a lot of younger audience as well,

but for those that are parents that want to get involved in this, the systemizing is where I really, love when parents can get involved. We do not want you writing essays. Okay, I've had so many committees tell me it is so obvious when a parent is doing the work for their child and they eliminate them. Okay. So systemizing, love it. What documents can we create? One of them is these general about me information. So what's our address? What's our, what university? What is the transcripts? Who are our recommenders? We can create, you know, a Google doc with all of this information or if you're nerdy like me. I love Notion these days, whatever system, you know, some kind of electronic digital cloud-based

system, please. We don't want papers, and then we find out that deadlines do and we're nowhere near our paper method, or if it's on a computer, this is personal experience. I dropped my computer freshman year. I lost a good chunk of my essays and had to find them. Luckily, I'd emailed them for reviews and could track them down, but that was a painful process. So creating some kind of cloud-based system, saving any kind of standard answers that you will often see in forms. This might sound so minimal. However, when we're doing a few dozen applications, saving a few minutes here and there can add up. But actually, I think one of the more important reasons we want to do this is accuracy. When we're doing this for a while or were you just

worked on an essay for an hour and now it's time to submit it, it's so easy to mistype something, to go cross-eyed. So I love having a standard doc. Another one that our family is that we walk them through, and we have templates, but you can just kind of make anything work. And that is an activities list. And this is another conversation parents can have with their student. But students listening to this, when you get to the end of a semester, go in and document. What did I do? What were my accomplishments? what awards or accolades did I earn? And if we have that winning essay, we can tweak it. We can improve it.

So that was where I would say by sophomore year in college, my core essay, I used the same one 90% of the time. I mean, truly. But every end of school year, every end of semester, I would update it with this. So again, these are kind of in my standard documents. Another conversation we just had a recommendation letters. So some recommenders will be willing to give a PDF copy. Now, sometimes they have to submit them themselves, and that's fine.

But having a couple on hand for when you're allowed to submit it on your own can also save time. Yep. I know it did for me. Absolutely. So much of my work here at her first under K is making sure women are burying their heads in the sand when it comes to their finances. But even the most financially savvy women in our community have a hard time talking about one of the most important financial protections you can have, life insurance. Here's the deal. Life insurance isn't for you. It's for the people who would be financially devastated if you were gone

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order and 365 day returns now available in Canada and the UK too. That's QINCE.com slash FF pod. So when we look at committees, right, committees are deciding or sometimes individuals even are deciding who gets what scholarship,

walk me through how scholarships are actually awarded. What is that committee looking for when they're picking one student over the other. I love this topic, and I can go on and on about it. If I was to boil it down to my most commonly used phrase, they want an ROI, a return on investment. And through the scholarship system, we've actually not only, we give scholarships as well. So I can personally attest to this. If I'm giving out thousands of dollars each year, I want to know the student's actually going to graduate,

that the student's going to take this money and pursue something. And, And that is what they're assessing. That's why they're asking, well, what challenges have you overcome? Because hint, hint, are you going to be able to overcome challenges when it gets tough in college? Are you going to be able to overcome challenges when it comes to getting an internship or a job? So they are using these prompts to see if we give you the money, maybe not necessarily will it come back to us, but will it come back to the world in a fruitful way? So this is where actually going back to the myth of it's never too late, or it is too late, and the truth is that it's never too late, they, college students are already showing,

hey, I'm here and I'm doing this. This is where if college students are eligible, sometimes they have a leg up because they already show, hey, I'm one, two, three semesters in, here's my GPA, I've gotten involved, I've chosen this major, you know, so they actually, when it comes to communicating in They have a little bit of an advantage there. So that's one of the biggest things. And how do we show that we are a good ROI on the scholarship spend? Again, what are we going to do with this money and why?

Do we have a plan? Sometimes I get pushed back where they're going to say, well, what if we don't exactly know what we want to do? I actually love even being honest and saying, I'm in between these two things. Try to say something. What are we interested in? because it'll just make the rest of it so much easier to answer. But committees are looking for, do you have a plan? Do you think you have a plan? We know it'll change, but do you think you have a plan because you need a plan in order to get through the four years? And we want to make sure

that if we give you the money, you're going to do that. So I had so many people I met in college who came in to the four years, totally understandably undeclared with their major. Are we saying that you should give the major you think you're going to pursue, even if it's not the one you are, does that position you better in a scholarship application? I do. I don't want anyone to lie. I don't want anyone to lie.

We can absolutely say, I am considering this and this. If we are, this is probably a bigger discussion, if we are allowing our students to go to college and they're completely clueless and they're just there to party, this is a different conversation, right? Hopefully they're going to college with the idea at least that they're heading to something that requires a degree. And it can be. I have no clue. So actually, I was between biomedical engineering and business school. They were not related at all. Right? But I could, going back to my why, going back to my what is my scholarship superpower, my story, I could show that actually it's because I wanted to make an impact, right? Whether it was making mechanical hearts or whether there's creating a business that changed lives. And so this is where you can actually, I just basically crafted a story right in front of you, right? Hey, I don't exactly

know what I want to do, but I know the impact I want to make. And here's a challenge that helped me figure that out. And that's going to be memorable with committees. If a committee is down to two finalists who are both qualified, who gets the scholarship? One of the things, that committees do, and this is myself included. I still remember stories that I read from, I can actually tell you, one specifically is 2017. And the reason I remember is because I remember the apartment I was in when I was reading the essay. And it was this adorable essay about the Boy Scouts and they were hiking up a mountain and he became the bottleneck and he had this whole plan. And it was so good. So he became, oh, the Boy Scout boy or the Bottleneck boy.

because you hide identifiers. But what that actually showed was committees remember stories. And they remember how you made them feel, right? I was the vending machine girl. Okay, there you go. So you've got your, there was a girl who was, she created costume. She was the costume girl. I can tell you our winners years later because I remember the story.

So when we're talking about winners, who actually wins, It's going to be that person that left enough of an impact that when I'm negotiating, hey, I want this person to get the money, they're the boot camp, or sorry, they're the bottleneck student or they're the costume or the vending machine girl. That's going to help. Now, say they both have two good stories. We're going to go to, did they follow the rules? Did they answer the prompts? You would be amazed at how many people, when it comes neck to neck, you're like, well, they did miss this material or they didn't quite do this. You would be shocked at how many people. don't follow instructions. And it makes our jobs, unfortunately, a lot easier. I mean, I think about it as I have my own version of this as an employer who offers a really compelling, robust benefits package. We get a lot of applications to work for us every single year. And often when we're not even hiring, like I get cold pitched a couple times a week. So when I have hundreds of not thousands of people I'm looking through, the easiest way to say no is, oh, you missed something, or you didn't follow the instructions, or you clearly didn't read this thing that I asked you to do.

So if I'm looking for an easy way to say no to you, I'm going to take it. Absolutely. If you've made it easy for me to say no, I'm going to take that no. Right. We have so many that are high quality. We've got to find ways to simplify, and that's definitely an easy one. I cannot tell you how stressful it is sometimes to run a small business. I think that small business owners listening, you understand. Everyone else cut us some slack. It is hard out here. There is so

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It's one of the most powerful ways you can protect your loved ones. And so many people think it's complicated. So they just keep putting it off, which then compounds because life insurance only gets more expensive the longer you wait. Fortunately, SOFi has teamed up with Latter to make it easy to quickly get life insurance. SoFi, the all in one finance app where you can bank, borrow, and invest, now offers insurance. SoFi can help you find term life insurance that's competitively priced, quick to apply for, and easy to understand.

Just answer a few health questions, and you could get up to $3 million in coverage with no medical exam or doctor's visits required. As your life changes, like getting married or buying a home, you can always suggest your coverage with a couple of clicks. No policy fees. Apply online and you can get an offer in minutes and turn life insurance is more affordable than you might think. Healthy females in their 30s could get rates as low as $19 a month for a 500K policy for a 10-year term. Individual rates will vary as specific circumstances will affect each customer's rate. Head over to sophy.com slash ffod to get your quote in minutes. That's s oafi.com This is a paid advertisement by SOFI technologies. Coverage and pricing is subject to underwriting

criteria. Ladder Life Insurance LLC, California license number OK-22568, distributes life insurance issued by multiple issuers. Latter, SOFI, and SOFI insurance agency are separate and dependent entities. Terms apply. I have to ask you about AI because I do feel like this is one of those things that can be so helpful for this process, but I can also see kids using AI to write their whole essay, which is not what we want. So how do we use AI effectively for, something like building a system? And when should we not be using AI to help our system? I am so glad you asked this. We're revamping our entire program and we are building software tools for this reason. When used in the right way, AI can be so powerful. However, I just got an

email from a scholarship committee member. Last week, we shared it with our members. Yeah, they said, hey, this kind of sounded like AI. I went to chat GPT, told it my name, and I said, can you answer this for me? It was the exact same text, almost verbatim with the name switched. He's not even a real student. Like, it was so terrible. And then, this is even scarier, they did it with a recommendation letter. So I don't, I'm actually waiting. I've shot him back a message and I said, okay, do you think the student did this? Because they forgot to request one and they tried to just pull one together? Or do you think the recommender, which is even scarier in my opinion, went to chat GPT and said, write me a recommendation letter

for the student? So again, he tested it. Same recommendation letter came out for Greg instead of the student. So where there's great power comes great responsibility. We are using AI tools to streamline the systemizing, right? How can we, actually, we've got a cool tool where it takes our superpowers and you just say, tell me what to do based on what Jocelyn says for Sundays, and it just creates it. So we don't have to become an expert in it. It can use what I've trained it on and it just tells us what to do. So I love for the systemizing piece of it. Maybe I would say as if, because I know students are going to try it anyway, even though I'm going to tell them not to, do not, do not, please do not write an essay with it. If you're going to try, if anything,

ask it to ask you questions to uncover what story we can tell. That is a better way to do it. I love AI for proofreading, not for rewriting, right? So use it as a mentor, but not to do the work for you, because they are spotting it. We run all our winners through an AI checker. And if it is, if it comes up as AI automatically eliminated. So actually, I should have said one of the things of a winner or not, a quick way to get eliminated is by using AI to do the work. We've always been innovative. We are really trying to fine-tune these software tools for our families to try and streamline some of the gritty work, even helping them find the scholarships that are not on the big search engines. That's great. But for using it, for writing essays and recommendation letters, if anyone writes

those, please don't, please don't. Yeah. I wanted to ask you, because I know students are out there. there's so much conversation about students using AI for their school essays. So I wanted to acknowledge, if we're using AI, if that is a thing for you and your family, okay, how do you use it effectively? And when should you not use it? So that was super helpful. Yes. And I will say, this is actually a little bit scarier for me. Parents, so I have recently been polling during my live trainings. Parents, is your student using it? And you would be shocked at how many of them say no. And I just have not. I'm sorry, I call bullshit. I call complete. Yeah, it's the same way. My students never drank. My students never done that. You know, it's the same thing.

It's like, yeah, they have. And that's okay, but they have. In two seconds, they can have a full paper written for them. They are absolutely using AI. And so this is, that is a whole other conversation. But I would, parents, you've got to address this when doing these scholarship applications. Absolutely do not use it to do the work for them. Yeah.

What scholarships are students commonly overlooking? So when it comes to scholarships, when we're talking about the myths, right, going back to the good scholarships, the big ones, a lot of students want to get that Coca-Cola or Dr. Pepper, right? They want the $100,000 win. Unfortunately, everyone wants that. So you're looking at 100,000 applicants as well. And so when students are looking at scholarships, they will see the $500 one and think, oh, 500 bucks. I need so many of those. I'm not going to waste my time on that. But we've had, oh my gosh, endless students where they spend an hour, 45 minutes on an application, and they win $500,000, even $2,000. That's a pretty good hourly rate, right? If we're calculating it.

So for sure, a lot of students overlook the small dollar ones. And I would say, actually, even I did this at first, I spent a whole year applying to the wrong ones the, you know, the enter to win $10,000 and put your favorite ice cream flavor in here. And not shockingly, I didn't win a single penny that way. And but even when I started tweaking again, trying to figure out this system, if it was under, I would say probably $5,000 at first, I was, I was just kind of moving on. But then I finally applied to a local $500 one and I won it. And that's when I said, okay, maybe I shouldn't be overlooking these.

Actually, I can tell you, my largest win was a $4,000 scholarship. $4,000. And you had $126,000 of scholarship. So we can do the math on that. If $4,000 was the highest, you still made up $122,000 somewhere. Right. Yeah, right. And that 4,000 was recurring.

So multiplied that by four years. So that knocked off. Yeah. But still. You had over $100,000 in small checks. Right, right. And it added up. And to where I actually got overage checks. So the biggest, the biggest one is do not overlook these small dollar ones. The reason is not only can they add up, but your competition, I'll never forget, one of my favorite wins I had, they actually told us there were four winners and they were, I don't remember the amount, but somewhere in the range of anywhere from $1,000 to $2,000. And they said to us, you know, believe it or not, actually, you guys were the only ones that applied. And it was a 100% success rate. All of us got an award. They, I later found out that they actually were only planning to give two, got four applicants,

reached out to the donors, would you match your donation so we could give all of them a win? And they did. It was a local construction company. And they had like this cute little banquet and it was awesome. But that's where also this just naturally increases our chances of winning because we're going for ones that are less competitive. I think the other one that's often overlooked. And this is helpful to students even already in college, or especially already in college, are ones that are specific to departments

later on. I'm laughing because if you didn't bring this up, I was bringing this up. Yeah, I mean, I got, I dual degree, so I have a degree in theater, and I have a degree in organizational communication, and I auditioned to get a theater scholarship before

I entered my program. And then, I don't remember what the first year was. I think it was maybe $1,500, but it increased every year. And I think by the time I was a senior, it was $4,000 a year. Same thing with communication. I had no idea there was even a comm-specific scholarship. I think I discovered it my sophomore year. They told me it was mostly need-based, and we'll talk about this in a second. Like, my parents were making enough money where I didn't qualify for financial aid, but in no way did we have $55,000 a year set up for me to go to college. college. So I applied anyway, and I was like, who knows? Also, the people who were deciding it were

my professors and I was doing really good work and building good relationships with them. I didn't get $2,000, which was the max, but I got $500 a year because nobody else applied. It was like me and a couple other people because nobody knew about it. And then every semester, I would be like, hey, are we still, there's still a communication department scholarship available. So I don't remember what I ended up getting. But total, it was probably a couple thousand dollars per department. So that saved me, yeah, probably $8,000 over the four years I was at university. And they were scholarships I did not know about. I had to ask. I had to ask about them. I have the exact same story. I went into the business school and I said, do you guys have any scholarships? It was this,

like, paper method. I'm like, we're the business school. We're supposed to be innovative here. No. And each year, the amount increased, it was like literally your story, verbatim. And so many students think when they apply to a university, they're automatically considered for as much money as they can get. And that's not the truth. It never hurts to ask, but specifically those departments, what they do. And to explain why, they want to know you're actually going to stick around in their major. They don't want to give you money and then you transfer.

And so this is why, again, those students who are already in college showing, hey, I'm here, I'm doing this, and proving like you, I'm doing good work. I'm into this major and interested. They want to give the money there. So absolutely. These are so overlooked. And I would not say, you know, choose a school that has a $100,000 gap for you because of this. Like, this is not something that we sacrifice our financial future banking on. It's going to be a few thousand dollars max a year, but this is definitely low-hanging fruit. I will also say this is a really sneaky thing, but it's what happened. My sophomore year roommate, basically her funds dried up. I think her parents had a hard time. She had a really tricky family situation, and she went into the financial aid

office, and she was kind of like, I will not be able to finish at this school. I might not even be able to finish this year. And they found money for her. So like, yes. I think that we are often so scared to talk about money, period. That's why this show exists. But also, oh, we don't want to ask for too much. And it's like, again, do you know how much university costs? Like college now at this point, my college that I graduated from only 10 years ago costs, I think, $20,000 more than when I went to school. That's an insane jump. So I am okay. taking money from my university. Like, I am okay making sure that I can graduate either debt-free or less in debt, even if I have to go in and be like, hey, this is the real reality.

Help me make sure I can stay at this school. This is more the financial aid side of this. This is where FAFSA, families submit FAFSA every year while our child is in college, because our situation changes each year, which also opens up the doors for negotiating for more money. So I love this going back and asking for money every single year, just in case. And especially because FAFSA uses prior prior tax information. Two years ago, a lot of us were sitting in a very different economy and our numbers are very different these days. And so the story being told on FAFSA is just not accurate. So it's also from a numbers standpoint on FAFSA, you can absolutely ask for more. But no matter what, I would always just walk into the office and ask them no. Anyway.

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by SOFI technologies, coverage and pricing is subject to underwriting criteria. Ladder Life Insurance LLC, California license number OK-22568, distributes life insurance issued by multiple issuers. Ladder, SOFI, and SOFI insurance agency are separate and dependent entities. Terms apply. Let's talk about that middle income gap, because full disclosure, that was my experience. There is a specific group of families that's almost invisible in these kind of conversations where you do not qualify for need-based aid, and this was me. I did not qualify. my parents did not qualify because frankly my parents made a lot of really smart financial choices. Like they did not upgrade their house when they could. We were still driving 10-year-old cars.

Like on paper, yes, my parents could not, you know, did not qualify for need aid. But in no possible circumstance did they have a bunch of money just sitting around waiting to send me to college. I'm also an only child. So like that was part of it too. So I imagine that's a big chunk of listeners is that middle where it's college is so expensive, but I'm not qualifying for the need aid that I might actually need to go to the university I want to go to. So what are the actual options for these type of families? Yeah. And I love this. And I have to say actually, this was this was me too, right? So I had this big gap to close. It was not something where we just got this free ride. And I will say that actually, nearly a third of families that make six figures do receive some kind of institutional grants. So that can still eliminate a lot of families, but this is where a lot of people will be told, oh, you make too much, just don't even bother with FAFSA.

We've had families come to us. They missed a deadline for FAFSA. Someone told them, don't bother doing it. And now they're realizing, oh, my gosh, we just missed out on so much money. because even if the, even if FAFSA says you can afford this, what's great is that a lot of universities and scholarship committees understand that FAFSA is no longer an accurate picture. I don't know if it ever has, but especially now. It is just so unrealistic. Like you said, the increases have just been exponential. And so I actually have committee members that I speak to from other scholarships and I kind of get their scoop on this. And this is where they do ask for FAFSA information because they want to get a full picture

because they know so many families are told this by the universities, oh, you make too much, we don't have money for you. And that's just ridiculous, right? So I'm just on the little kind of got me on my train here on how unrealistic FAFSA results are and how many families are put into this this middle income gap is what we call it. So I was there as well. And I will say, of course, for me, these private external scholarship dollars is where I was able to chip away at the bill. But I will say that this is also where if we have not chosen a university, casting that net wide and being open to finding a financial fit is a quick way to possibly save tens of thousands of dollars. So choosing the school, we got a message today from a family that they, it's a very,

is so strange, actually. I have had two stories that specifically were NYU. They missed the FAFSA deadline, and NYU will absolutely not budge. This family has a very low FAFSA number, which means that they would have gotten a ton of money from NYU. They won't budge. And to me, my answer to that is you're not going to NYU. I'm sorry. I mean, for undergraduate to take on all this debt, I am, for me, I don't think the name on the degree matters that much to bear yourself in, not, you know, no, it's not. Maybe masters, you know, that's different when we're talking about an MBA and you're accessing their network and stuff like that.

But for undergraduate, follow the money. And one family can have very different offers at different schools with the same FAFSA number can have very different offers. So for sure, if we can shop around. And I know students don't like to hear that. I know. I know that student wants to go to NYU. But again, when we're talking about potentially 21 years of student loan payments, you know, I know as a mother of two daughters, I would give up my, you know, left foot for whatever.

Like, like, whatever, I would do everything I can for them. But at the same time, our job as parents is to help them make mature decisions. If they told us, I'm never eating again, we're going to say, no, that's not good for you. If they're going to tell us, hey, I missed a deadline and now I have to borrow $200,000, but this other school is way more affordable, it's a tough conversation. And this is where we support a lot of parents. Okay, so this is such a good thing to pause on because this is the reality. And you're exactly right where no 17-year-old kid wants to hear, you can't go to X sexy school.

Yeah, whether that's NYU or I don't know what other sexy schools are. I'm too old now. But like, how do we actually start to think about the thing that feels like the in-moment decision of, I want to go to, yeah, the school in New York, or I want to go where my friends are going or my boyfriend is going versus getting them to understand. Like, how do I convince a 17-year-old to think like a 30-year-old who has had crippled student debt? I mean, do we show them, Dave Ramsey? I don't think that's the right solution.

But like, how do we... It worked for you? And, you know, who know? I don't know. John Mullaney has this great bit where he's like, you know, I went into $120,000 of debt to get an English major for a language I already spoke, you know? And it's like, yeah, he's like I was, you know,

asleep and in sweatpants and had to sign away my life to be an English major. So what kind of conversation do we need to be having with the reality check of? of student debt is a trillion-dollar issue. I love this. And we are in the middle. I am completely updating our whole program around these superpowers. We're going to give a link to that quiz because it is so important for this, because each student is going to react to information differently.

So for some people, numbers speak right to them. For me, just tell me, well, the alternative is borrowing $100,000. And I was like, bah, you know, like, okay, I will do it. For other students, they're like, well, everyone does that. That what, you know, who cares, right? They're not putting themselves in that future situation. And I will tell you that we actually bring in a teen psychologist for this reason. She speaks to how their brains are actually not even developed fully in the way of thinking in long-term consequences.

So to ask them to think of how this is going to impact their life in 15 years, for many of them, their brains. for many of them, their brain is not even capable. So this is where we have to break down the consequences in a way that our student can understand. And for anyone that's in this, understanding what motivates you is helpful too, right? So if you're trying to muster up the energy to do a scholarship application and it's just not coming, again, we're going to find your superpower completely free and try to find a way that motivates you. So for example, maybe hearing 100,000, $1,000 is not going to work for you. However, maybe if we can convert that into, again, going back to what's that monthly loan payment going to be? And what would you do with that instead?

So if we're freeing up $1,000 a month, let's have fun with this. If we're a parent, where could we travel to? I mean, $1,000 a month, one year of those payments, $12,000. That is actually a pretty decent vacation even today, right? Or maybe they like fancy cars and they know they want to lease something. Or maybe they are into investments. We need to find ways that speak to that student. Or, again, ourselves, we need to understand how we are motivated. So we have something, our college cost calculator,

where it puts all the schools side by side so that you can kind of see apples to apples. So do that with your student. and say, okay, this is the borrowing amount that we are seeing. And we take a step further and then we have them put in what career path they're looking at and we pull what their disposable income would be. That is eye-opening, right? So, again, if money speaks to them, you can say, hey, your take-home is going to be $4,000 a month and 25% of that is going to go to this bill, right? So it really is about figuring out what speaks to our student and have the conversation in that way. If we just try to go in it, I know best, I know better, you just have to do this whether you like it or not,

they are probably going to double down. I had a mom email me once panicking because her daughter was doing this and I said, hey, pull up that cost calculator, show her the difference and paint the picture in the future. I got a follow-up email like a week later, she chose the debt-free ride. And it just, it had to be converted into words that actually spoke to them. I mean, I remember being 18, 19 years old and truly having no concept of money. What I mean is like how much $50,000 or $100,000 actually was. And I remember looking up like the average salary I was going to make when I graduated versus what it costs for one year of college. That was the thing that really started cementing because yeah, my college

without any scholarships or without aid all in was $55,000 a year. And like that didn't mean anything to me because I wasn't making any sort of like salary, right? I had jobs, but I wasn't making a salary that, you know, required a degree. And so the first time I actually sat down and considered what is the value of $55,000? And I, that was my exact salary the first year out of school. I made 55K. And it is wild to think about I was working 40 plus hours a week for an entire year, five days a week, you know, for these, to earn the same amount of money that it costs. cost me to go to one year of school. Again, I got scholarships. I got other things. But like, that was the only sort of connection that really clicked for me. At the time, it was just like,

yep, we're going to college. I know it's expensive. I'll figure it out later. Exactly. And that conversation, again, going back to not to lecture parents, but this is our role. And this is what's so incredible about the work you do, especially for women. They don't like to talk about money regardless. Period. Never mind having, you know, a lot of parents, they are still paying on their student loans. So how can they tell their kid you're not a lot of borrow money when they did? Or maybe their parents didn't give them the school of their dreams. And so they want to change generational patterns. I mean, there's a lot going on here, right? And so I just have the utmost empathy for parents that are in the situation that have to say to their child, honey, this is not practical. So, so breaking it down in a way that does speak to them so that hopefully they can start getting to that decision on their own. But still, no matter what, I mean, going back to the debt figures, if we're talking about borrowing that money, that parent is going to have to co-sign, if they're capable, if their credit allows it. And that means if their child doesn't pay those loans,

they're on the hook for it, just as if they borrowed it. I met a mom. She had a falling out with her daughter. Her daughter disappeared. She is paying $12 a month on student loans because otherwise it will completely destroy her own credit. So this is where, you know, we're not just talking about them being buried in debt. We're talking about parents, even grandparents these days, right? So this really is a family conversation and decision. And if you have a hard time having that conversation, that's where experts like us can help with that. Because I do know money is such a sticky topic. Yeah. I mean, with that conversation, Sally May. says that 42% of families with federal student loans expect them to be forgiven. So like that's part of

it too is I think there is this belief of, oh, but student loan forgiveness. And of course, I think you and I both would say we support student loan forgiveness absolutely, but is an administration is the people we elect going to support student loan forgiveness and not just for the two, for eight years they're in office, but to actually get things passed. So what is the act? reality of student loan forgiveness at this moment because I have a feeling it's pretty bleak. Yes, I would say so. You know, people joked back in the Bernie Sanders days, what are you going to do? If he, I'm like, I'm not concerned because these kind of, you know, I mean, first off, Harvard can always charge. Yeah, that's what I'm going to do.

Yeah, like if I, if my reason, if the scholarship system is no longer necessary, that means we, we solved a pretty big problem for a nation. I am ecstatic, please, but I'm not that concerned about it because, like you said, each administration changes their opinions on this. And there are forgiveness programs. They're absolutely under attack right now, the ones that have existed. But even then, they're narrow, they have very strict rules and often do still require decades of on-time payments. This is not like you can just not pay your bill and hopefully one day it'll disappear. maybe we'll get lucky. But for me, the most important line of defense is minimizing what we borrow from the beginning. I always, you know, for me, I'm not an expert on student debt because I avoided it.

I am an expert on helping families stay out of debt. So for me, the most important piece is just trying to not even borrow versus banking on them being forgiven. Because yeah, we saw. We got all, a lot of people got their hopes up just for it to be ripped away. And even the one, that have been well established for public service, even those are under attack. So this is not a smart strategy. Yeah. And a really harsh stat we found is that there is a number of social security beneficiaries

having their checks garnished for student loan debt. That's grown 3,000 percent between 2001 and 2019. So we have half a million seniors in default who are at risk of losing part of their retirement income because of student debt. You know, that's a whole other con. conversation, but this is why your work is so important of if we can prevent or significantly lower student debt in the first place, this doesn't have to be the reality for students. Absolutely. And that goes back to what I was saying with the co-signing. It is not just the students

problem. We are seeing it's now parents problems and grandparent problems. And during COVID, they paused a lot of this, but it is starting back up. We're going to start seeing this happen, again, where IRS checks are being intercepted or social security checks. So, yeah, hit the nail on the head. And a lot of people, actually, I think there's a stat, over half, over 51% of people who have co-signed already know they're going to have to delay retirement because of it. And I have told families, you know, they can always find strategies for paying for college, but you cannot find strategies to pay for retirement.

Yeah. Right? It's one of the things Dave Ramsey and I agree about. That's one of the only things. But it's true. There is no loan for your retirement. Like student loans are not ideal, but they exist. Retirement loans do not.

And if you are trying to get your child financially ahead and you're like, okay, well, I'll help contribute for their college, you might be moving back in with them and becoming a financial burden later because you could not afford your own retirement. Truly. And this is where, again, we have. families that have said, this, I cannot pay for college for my child, but I can do this work with them. And this is where parents helping them create a system, helping them find the scholarships, helping motivate them, learning their superpower and having these conversations to speak to that

superpower profile. This is where parents, I actually have an interview with a mom. She said, you know, I knew I couldn't pay for her college, but I could pay for this. And we gave up eating out, X amount on our dates and instead we flipped it for a scholarship Sunday time. That girl ended up going to college for free. So I told her, I said, you did pay for her college. You did with the attention and the time and the focus on the process. And I would love to tell parents, hey, just, you know, send this podcast to your child and they'll just go and do it. But they are still kids. They can, the families that get the big wins that we've had families get more money than I have now. And, and they do treat it like a partner effort. But again, with these stats of co-signing affecting parents and

grandparents, it behooves them to. When we look at students or families that have a successful scholarship system in place versus those who don't, what is the number one difference somebody listening could make? I think consistency, right? So a lot of families, we talk about, we have, we've got kind of three personas of families. We've got the freezes where they try to apply for scholarships. They do a few Googles and they get so overwhelmed. And then we end up applying to absolutely nothing. And then we've got the hustlers where they are doing the opposite,

where they're applying to everything under the sun, the sweepstakes scholarships, the scams. And they burn out, right? And then we have what we, of course, call our rebel families, those savvy strategic families that, no, these are the ones that align to our student. They're not going to beat the Harvard kids for that Coca-Cola scholarship. But, again, we're great at agriculture. And so we're going to go for that one and narrow it down to something that our child can win.

So the more strategic approach, this is what a system brings, right? Going at it in a strategic way so that we, can be consistent so that we don't either freeze or hustle and burnout because that's where I find families. They tend to go on opposite ends of the spectrum. And so by the end of senior year in high school, they are so done. They don't want to even hear the word scholarship. But if we can be strategic, have a clear plan, have kind of tunnel vision with clear steps to follow, that is when they can bring in money. Because this is a long game. Like I said, for me, some students, they'll get millions of dollars in offers up front. If that's your child, fantastic. That's amazing. But for a lot of us,

we had to chip away at it. And so we need to, we need a plan for the long game. Thank you for being on the show. I will tell listeners that you and I met in 2018 when her first 100K was still a side hustle. And you gave me some great business advice around building my email funnel. And I literally remember meeting you and being so impressed by you. And I went home and did my homework. And it worked. And I was just so thankful for you. So this is, I think, maybe the first time we've talked since then, or at least face to face through Zoom. And so I just appreciate you being on the show and sharing all of your guidance.

So plug away, my friend. Where can we learn more about everything that you teach? Yes. And I was so in love with you back then, and I knew that you were just going to blow up. I'm like, you just need to collect these emails because you are already going to make such an impact. So I'm so happy to hear that. So if they go to the scholarship system.com, we have so many incredible free resources, but we did,

we do have a free webinar. And if you go to the scholarship system.com slash financial feminist, then you can go ahead and it'll just beeline you right there. We also do have that scholarship superpower quiz. And I do want to give that again, it's free. And at the end, the report will give you insight on the best ways to have these tough conversations, the best motivators, and even how to tackle the process so that we can have that consistency and build that system. So we also created an easy link. It's financial feminist quiz. So we go to the scholarship system.com slash financial feminist quiz for that. But start with those two free resources and get your feet wet. And we've got tons of stuff on YouTube, Instagram, follow us in all the places. But also, if you just want to say,

give me tunnel vision, just tell me what to do. You can learn more about our course at those links to. Amazing. Thank you for being here. Thanks for having me. Thank you for listening to Financial Feminists, produced by Her First 100K. If you love this show and want to keep supporting feminist media, please subscribe or follow us on your preferred podcasting platform or on YouTube. Your support helps us continue to bring this content to you for free. If you're looking for resources, tools, and education, including all of the resources mentioned in this episode, head to herfirst00K.com slash s-spod.