How much time should I spend on scholarships?

How much time should you spend on scholarships?

Probably more than you think.

Just because scholarships are an efficient way to pay for college doesn't mean they're an easy way. You're going to want to dedicate a solid chunk of time to find, choose, apply for, and follow up on scholarships.

It helps if you schedule specific times for scholarship hunting-applying: For example, two hours on Saturdays, or every Thursday night. I can’t give you a specific time you should allot in your schedule, but when I was funding college through scholarships, I would generally spend a full day searching for scholarships online once every month or two, and then a several hours each week after that putting together applications.

If this is your schedule, you might want to stuff "scholarships" somewhere in there. (Image courtesy of http://www.mamieyoung.com/).

But really, I didn’t limit myself. Every time I had some free time, I’d usually find myself looking for scholarships.

So put on iTunes, play some Disney music, pop in a movie, and get scholarship hunting on your calendar! It's worth it -- paying for college is worth it.

Scholarships from the past: Are old scholarships still available?

Sometimes, when I'd go to a scholarship site, there'd be a bad sign. Actually, it'd be a bad statement, usually along the lines of:

"CLICK HERE to apply for our 2009 scholarship!!"

And it was 2010.

Even scholarship providers can be a little late in updating their website!

Now, that doesn't necessarily mean the scholarship was a scam -- not everyone gets around to updating their website. But it's something to remember: To help decide if a scholarship is worth your time or valid, check out the website and make sure it's up to date, or even e-mail the scholarship provider to see if they respond and are still hosting the scholarship if you're in any way concerned it's invalid.

This will help you find out whether it's still going -- or whether it's a dud. And finding out will put you ahead of the other scholarship applicants who will probably just assume it's no longer being held -- and that'll help you fund college through scholarships.