Some scholarship and fun money news!!

Wow, I can't believe it is 10 days since I posted. This month is truly flying by with end of semester activities and the holidays quickly approaching. It is easy to get caught up in activities that seem more fun that the college finance process, however, 'tis the season!!! That's right, a lot of time now should be spent preparing for the filing of the 2009-2010 financial aid applications and for the completion of scholarship applications!!

There is a brand new site and concept out there that could help kids raise some money for college. This is a new and awesome concept. A new website called gradefund.com was recently started by two brothers, Michael and Matthew Kopko. It works like this. The site allows students to create online profiles and invite family and friends to "sponsor" the student for the achievement of good grades at the end of an academic term. Students can also get corporate sponsorship if they are studying something of interest to specific corporations.

This site, only a little over a month old has over 900 users. About 15-25% of them are sponsors, the rest are students. This runs much like "pledging" funds when people are raising money for a particular charity, say the American Cancer Society.

This is a way to raise money by "thinking outside the box"! Now if they had a way to invest the funds a student raises, much like "UPromise" does, this could truly be a unique venue for raising funds. The idea came to the Kopko brothers when they became aware of a friend, recently graduated from college, who came out with their degree and $120,000 of student loan debt.

So students, get motivated, start studying and raise some money!!!! Right now, the highest price being paid for an "A" is $400.00!!!!!