So lost, and need to get into college..Advice please

[Italia5239]

Well I just turned 19, and basically now I'm really stressing about getting into College. My family (Mother and I) have no money to pay for classes, and I've been trying to get scholarships everywhere, but most require you to be right out of high school, or already enrolled in college.

Basically, I plan to go to a community college for atleast two semesters to just take my foreign language. I never took it in high school because my counselor is an idiot and never told me or directed me towards taking them, so of course I didn't know it was absolutely necessary. Now I'm ruined for getting into a university without it, and I need to get those done. Unfortunately, my mom can't get her taxes back due to her attorneys own problems, and I can't afford even in state tuition. What should I do? I'm very stuck, and was hoping to get into spring semester, but really don't know what to do?

What should I apply for? I can't get FAFSA because the tax documents are incomplete.

[ScholarshipGuy]

Financial aid through the federal government is ideal if you have more education expenses than your income would allow, but if there's tax problems that would definitely be an issue.  It also takes a few months to kick in, usually the FAFSA you'd file at the beginning of 2009 would be applied toward expenses in the Fall 2009 semester.

In the meantime, you can check out scholarship search engines like Fastweb and Scholarship Experts - these sites will let you fill out a profile of your personal information that helps to match you to scholarships, grants, and contests that you're eligible for.

While applying for scholarships can be a helpful way to secure funds for college, you should also be aware that most applications are not awarded funds!  To maximize your odds you should definitely apply for everything you're specifically eligible for - perhaps ten awards for every one you actually win.  Recycle and reuse essays, focus on submitting high quality essays but always adhere to the details of the procedures and work on being able to write up these quick self-promotional packages. 

If everything else fails, there's student loans.  Debt is never fun but it can be net profitable if you get a good education at a reasonable price.  Community colleges are great for this!  Ultimately, the quality of your education will be determined by how much effort and study you put it, not necessarily the brand name written on the diploma

[Lordress]

I am working with a women's health company to provide their first annual scholarship. Take this survey and you will soon have this $10,000 scholarship available for your school! http://tinyurl.com/cq2vo6

[ericrite24]

I've posted this elsewhere on the forums, but given your circumstances I wanted to make sure you saw this--

http://scholarship-source.net/

I just applied to this, but from what the website says anyone can apply to this $10,000 scholarship.  I guess they award the same amount to a different student twice per month.  It took me about 5 minutes to fill everything out and there weren't any essays or anything.  I applied just to have some extra cash but it seems like you could really use it.

Best of luck!