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With inflation on the rise, food and gas prices skyrocketing, and job growth at a standstill, this may seem like the worst time to put your precious time and money into going back to school for a degree. Contrary to that intuition, however, economic downturns can be a great time to revisit the student life.

Going back to school can give you an unlikely shelter in the recession storm. Here are five reasons why:

1. Access to free money
Scholarships, Pell grants, and awards are as catch-free as the $20 bill from Grandma on your birthday. The money is yours to use as you please, and you never have to pay back a cent. All you have to do is fill out the applications, maybe write a few essays, and keep yourself in school. When else in your life are you going get thousands of dollars for free? Never, unless your grandma is Oprah or somebody.

2. Access to cheap money
Student loans are the best loans on the planet. Their interest rates are insanely low, and you don’t have to start paying them back until six months after you graduate. Loans like this aren’t available to anyone else but college students.

3. You’re not missing out on anything.
While you are absent from the working world, especially during a recession, guess what? Nothing is happening. Your former co-workers aren’t moving into their dream jobs because there are no jobs. A recession really lowers the opportunity costs of going to back to school.

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4. Powerful networks and career resources
Forget the classifieds. College campuses are hubs for powerful networks. They tend to draw influential people from various disciplines together into one place. You will have access to professors, administrators, and fellow students who may be your key to your dream job. Add onto that the well-connected career centers that are usually found on college campuses, and you have a cornucopia of opportunities to network. Way better than happy hour.

5. Uncle Sam loves you.
When you are living on financial aid and making little or no income, the government has nothing to tax you for. According to Uncle Sam’s numbers, you are the poorest of the poor and, therefore, have access to handfuls of free services. Many students qualify for food stamps, Medicaid, and even utility assistance. Visits to those infamously unkind government offices can be grueling, but the free food and insurance more than make up for the shoddy customer service.
 

If you’ve been thinking of going back to school, now may be the time to do it. Why weather the recession storm looking for jobs when you can go to school, get ahead, and save alot of money doing it?

With fall approaching and many students (and their parents) worrying about college tuition, it’s time for the annual public service announcement on scholarship scams. In short, beware. A recent article on MSNBC.com detailed the woes of several college hopefuls who had fallen victim to one particular scholarship scam. This scam involved a company — College Money Matters — which promised to help students obtain money for college in exchange for a large fee — about $1,000. But promises weren’t kept, and students who tried to obtain refunds were often met with resistance and even harassment. College Money Matters is just one example of scholarship-service scams out there. In fact, scholarship-service scams have become so egregious as to attract the attention of the Better Business Bureau. To help consumers avoid potential pitfalls and make educated decisions about financial aid, the Better Business Bureau issued a statement in 2003 entitled “Scholarship Services: Are They All Scams?” in which they warned students to be suspicious if a scholarship service makes one or more of the following claims:

"The scholarship is guaranteed or your money back." In reality no one can guarantee that they will get you a grant or scholarship. And the refund guarantees that are offered usually have so many conditions or strings attached that it is almost impossible for consumers to get their money back. "You can not get this information anywhere else." Actually, scholarship information is widely available in books, from libraries and financial aid offices and on the Internet, if you are willing to search for it. "We will do all the work." In reality, only parents and students can determine and provide the financial information needed to complete the forms. Actually, to apply for scholarships, students must complete the application themselves. "You have been selected by a national foundation to receive a scholarship." If you have not entered a competition sponsored by the foundation, this claim is highly unlikely. "May I have your credit card or bank account number to hold this scholarship?" This is never a requirement for a legitimate scholarship offer. "The scholarship will cost some money." Legitimate scholarship offers never require payment of any kind. Free money is free money, unless it is a loan. But if it is not a loan, any fees that may be charged, such as the origination and guarantee fees, are taken out of the disbursement check.

While scholarship scams are relatively new, it should be noted that they share the usual characteristics of old-fashioned confidence schemes: (1) unfounded guarantees; (2) claims to privileged information; (3) promises of a “sure thing” — no risk; and finally, the hallmark of all scams, (4) all money is paid up front. The last of these traits is typically the litmus test of legitimacy: if a representative of any service wants money up front (despite their assurances and guarantees), then beware. Chances are you are being presented with a scam. College is expensive, and financing a college education can be frustrating even without the shysters. That being said, money is available — there are thousands of legitimate scholarships out there. But scholarships belong in the category of things that, ultimately, prospective students have to do alone. The important thing to remember is that scholarships are selective by their very nature, and part of that selection process involves weeding-out large applicant pools to find a handful of select individuals. More often than not, the recipients of these awards are careful and persistent seekers who approach financial aid as a serious and time-consuming process and not those swayed by the flattery and false promises of scholarship scams. ABOUT THE AUTHOR Benjamin Welch has been a college instructor in writing and composition for nearly six years. When he’s not teaching or playing golf, he offers advice for students seeking information about online education and online degrees.

Benjamin Franklin once quipped that there are two certainties in life — death and taxes. But as every college student knows, life also has a third certainty — rising tuition. At most schools, tuition increases at a rate of about 3-5% per year. On average, the cost of one-year’s worth of school, including tuition, housing, transportation, and other fees, amounts to about $12,000 per year at a public school and $32,000 per year at a private school. That means that the cost of a bachelor’s degree is anywhere from $50,000 to a staggering $125,000. Still, even with the rising cost of education, there are several promising signs for college students (and their parents). Perhaps the most widely televised indicator is the bill recently passed in Congress that will allocate more money for Pell grants. Currently, recipients of federally-funded Pell grants get $4,310 each year. The bill, which passed 78-18, would raise that amount to $5,400. The bill would also provide loan forgiveness to students who take jobs in public service following graduation and make payments for ten years. What this means is that more Pell grant recipients — typically, the poorest college students — will get a significant boost from the federal government in the form of financial aid that does not have to be repaid. As such, these students can reduce their need for financial aid that does need to repaid — namely loans. For more information about this bill as well a subsequent bill that targets the financial aid application process and the problem of conflicted interests between banks and colleges, see “Senate Votes to Increase Grants, Loans.” A second promising sign is the recent move by Amherst College to eliminate student loans entirely and replace them with scholarships. This move provides greater flexibility for both the school and prospective students. On the one hand, it allows Amherst to draw on a broader pool of applicants — not just the ones who can pay for school outright or who can be reasonably expected to repay loans. On the other hand, it grants students greater flexibility after graduation.

"Too often, students who graduate from college with debt feel compelled to make career choices based in part on their need to pay off their student loans," said Tom Parker, dean of admission and financial aid. "Graduates from low- and middle-income families should have the same array of career options as graduates from upper-income families."

In doing away with student loans, Amherst joins other notables like Princeton and Davidson, who have likewise replaced student loans with scholarships. Hopefully, the move by Amherst and others will open up a dialogue at other institutions and herald similar moves in the near future. To read more about how Amherst intends to implement (and pay for) its new program, see “Amherst Cuts Loans in College Aid.” The third and final indicator is perhaps the most anecdotal but also the most promising of the three, at least potentially. It deals with the long-standing gripe of both students and faculty at colleges and universities around the country — namely, the price of textbooks. Well, it seems one professor has finally had enough. Ron Hammond, a sociology professor at Utah Valley State College in Orem, Utah, announced recently that he will no longer use textbooks in his courses. In “Textbook Prices Too Much, So UVSC Professor Eliminates Their Use,” Hammond said, "I think it’s immoral because of the cost of it." Instead, he’s tailoring his classes to cover similar material by drawing on other sources, such as those available for free online, and by opting for his own tests and questions rather than those provided by the textbook. While Hammond is only an isolated case — at least for now — he does represent a growing number of disaffected teachers who are looking for alternatives to the overpriced textbooks provided by a handful of well-established publishers. If other professors follow suit — and it is almost certain they will — publishers will need to respond or risk losing a lucrative but increasingly hostile market. If they don’t, they could see migration en masse to textbook-less courses such as those offered by Professor Hammond, leaving behind a stack of high-priced but now worthless textbooks, which would give disgruntled college students something they’ve clamored for for years — a good old-fashioned book burning. ABOUT THE AUTHOR Benjamin Welch has been a college instructor in writing and composition for nearly six years. When he’s not teaching or playing golf, he offers advice for students seeking information about online education and online degrees.