We’ve found several options available as we think through the process of paying for college.  Not all of them will work for every student, but here are some possibilities we’ve discovered:

• Take Advanced Placement (AP) classes in high school. If your child is a good student, he can realistically get 10 to 20 hours of college credit while in high school. The AP exam is $85, but that’s a lot less than the same amount of hours in college. If your school does not offer AP classes, you can still take the exam.  It may be worth a shot.
• Do the first year of college at a local community college.  That year might even be free if you can combine it with your state’s Hope scholarship.
• If your child has his heart set on one specific college, he can at least take a couple of courses at the community college during the summer before his freshman year.  That saves a little money down the road.
• Apply for scholarships within his major at the university he will be attending.  Many departments have freshman scholarships totally separate from general admissions scholarships.  Some are academic, some are need based and some are based on volunteer work.  Some are even a combination of all three.
• Constantly check your high school guidance office for scholarship information.  At our school, there is a senior guidance counselor, but there is also a college and career guidance counselor.  She is there solely to help students get ready for whatever is coming their way after high school graduation.  She also keeps a website up to date with scholarship information.
• Stay on top of any information the high school needs to send colleges. The counselor has many students to look after, and things can slip between the cracks.  Don’t hesitate to give her a call to confirm transcripts going out before deadlines. The daughter of a friend most likely would have received an academic scholarship for her first year of college, but the high school guidance counselor forgot to send in her transcripts before the deadline.  Remember, the squeaky wheel . . .
• Look into a co-op program, where you child goes to school one semester and then works one semester in a job relating to his major.  Many people work their way through school, and this is a way to do it while getting work experience in their chosen field.
• This doesn’t help with your current senior, but if you have younger children, learn from this experience.  Start planning options and looking for ways to get scholarship dollars as early as ninth grade.  Invest in a few good books about scholarships to get you started.  Ben Kaplan’s “How to Go to College Almost For Free” is an excellent reference. He also has a website.  Kaplan won more than $90,000 in scholarships and graduated from Harvard debt-free in 1999.  Other good books are “Money-Winning Scholarship Essays and Interviews” by Gen and Kelly Tanabe, and “Free $ For College” in the Dummies series.
• Speaking of ninth grade, we made the mistake of listening to our middle school teachers. They encouraged our twins to only take one honors course freshman year, because they said high school was such an adjustment for kids. Well, they took that one honors course and standard in everything else. They could have easily done the work in the other honors courses and gotten their GPA’s a little higher. Freshman year really makes a difference.
• Do volunteer work all through high school. This really helps on college and scholarship applications. Try to get some unique experience. Your kids will be up against millions who are active in their church youth group or participated in the local community food drive.  It’s not that those are great activities; it’s just that colleges and scholarship committees are looking for leaders.