“Most people have an idea that the boy or girl who goes to college has an easy time of it,” wrote Selby A. Moran. “This may be true in a measure with those whose parents are well-to-do and are able to pay all of their children’s expenses and gratify their every desire. It certainly is not the case with the thousands of young men and women who are struggling to obtain a college education and have nothing more than their own efforts on which to depend.”
Moran’s Over 100 Ways to Work One’s Way through College (readily available on Google Books) offers up such prospects as peeling potatoes, soliciting orders for underwear, selling and repairing fountain pens, and organizing orchestras and giving concerts (let that last one sink in for a minute). It was also written in 1906, and times have changed since then for college students (if only slightly). The government was keen to subsidize tuition, there was a whole industry devoted to private financial aid, and the potato peeler has since been invented. And whether your parents gratify your every desire or you depend on your own efforts, there are more options for financing your bachelor’s, master’s, or doctorate.
A Public Space
Juilliard, Mannes, and Manhattan School of Music are all ace schools—there’s no arguing that point. However, state universities offer many of the same benefits at a fraction of the cost. Joyce Castle attended Kansas State University. Rockwell Blake and Renée Fleming are alumni of the State University of New York system. Kate Lindsey and Vivica Genaux went to Indiana University. And Lisette Oropesa went one step further: the Baton Rouge native went to Louisiana State University, allowing her to pay tuition as an in-state resident. As of the 2009-10 academic year, this cost roughly $2,600 per semester at LSU—compare that to Juilliard, which is over $16,000 each semester.
“I wanted to go to Maryland because it had so much to offer,” says Maura Lafferty, a singer who now works in classical music PR in San Francisco. “There are a bunch of good state schools with strong music programs.” The Maryland resident also scored several scholarships for her decision to stay close to home. “There’s a pretty high percentage of kids who attend Maryland colleges, staying in state after they graduate. So the state is invested in keeping smart kids close to home.”
Boarding the Scholarship
Lafferty received several scholarships from her state (and state university) as financial incentive, something she attributes to putting 110 percent into her application essays and bonding with her college counselors. For those in high school, getting as much face time as you can with your own guidance department and college advisors will help keep you towards the top of the list when it comes to scholarship nominations. Show them your talents and your dedication to a secondary education (rather than simply telling them of these qualities) and make it clear you’re seeking financial aid—whether it’s for an in-state school or a prime conservatory. If it is your aim to go to Cincinnati College Conservatory of Music, don’t let yourself be easily swayed into a budget-friendly safety school on merits of tuition alone.
In addition to scholarships for attending a specific school, there are talent-based scholarships. Some, like the DePaul University Music Performance Scholarship ($13,000), Notre Dame de Namur University’s Emerging Artist Talent Scholarship ($9,500), and the University of the Redlands’ Music Award ($8,000) are school-specific. Others, such as the Alfonso Loera Music Scholarship and the Doris and Clarence Glick Classical Music Scholarship Fund, are regional awards. And awards like the Glenn Miller Scholarship Competition are national (and cover more genres of music than classical voice). Websites like MusicScholarships.us and Classical Singer’s own competition database offer comprehensive guides.
Chances are, however, you’ll be facing off against many of your peers and future colleagues in these contests. While the opposition is no less fierce in other fields, there are other general scholarships worth investigating. FastWeb.com is a free and comprehensive resource that boasts over $1billion in financial aid options. Political leanings aside, a singer well versed in close reading and critical writing could make a killing in the Ayn Rand Institute’s essay contests (high school students get The Fountainhead and college students tackle Atlas Shrugged; for more info, visit AynRandNovels.com/essay-contests/). Other similar awards await those who were Girl Scouts and Boy Scouts, are twins and triplets, fashion their prom outfits out of Duck brand duct tape, and more.
Need Granted
In general, scholarships are given for merit and grants are given for financial need (though as a few hours on FastWeb will show, some scholarships are exclusive to certain financial brackets). For those of you who have already done the undergrad gamut, you will no doubt remember your old friend FAFSA, the gateway to most federal grants and loans. For the uninitiated, get ready to bond with the Free Application for Federal Student Aid at FAFSA.ed.gov, a relatively painless application process that you must fill out each year. In return, you are considered for nine federal student aid programs plus 605 state and institutional aid programs.
In addition to the state schools and myriad of liberal arts universities that offer grants through FAFSA, the private schools and conservatories also have you covered. Juilliard’s financial aid packages include the Federal Pell Grant (which doles out $400 to $4,731 per year to recipients). Honor roll students entering the school can also qualify for the Academic Competitiveness Grant ($750 to $1,300), the Federal Supplemental Education Opportunity Grant ($100 to $4,000), and the New York State Tuition Assistance Plan or TAP ($200 to $5,000). Mannes College of Music and the Manhattan School of Music work with similar grants, and all schools consider students for scholarships, up to and including a full ride for students in dire financial straits.
Free Money . . . For a Price
Face it: you will be offered loans. And you may need to take those loans. This is one of the few instances in which it’s okay to take out loans. The federal student loan program has been in hot water as of late due to numerous scandals (at the expense of the students). But as of July 1, the government has overhauled the program to make loans easier to get and repay. It’s a good time to go back to school. The Stafford Loan, the most popular loan for students to take out, will no longer have to be obtained through a bank, and repayment interest has dropped from 5.6 to 4.5 percent on subsidized loans.
One of the best recent tomes on repaying loans is Suze Orman’s The Money Book for the Young, Fabulous, and Broke. Yes, Orman is on her way to becoming a caricature of herself (jackets and all)—but when it comes to finances, she’s our kind of crazy. While Orman advocates tailoring your loan repayments to fit your financial situation rather than spinning in to debt trying to make a certain amount by a deadline, she stresses that this is no excuse to be late on a payment. In fact, paying consistently on time could mean your interest rate will go even lower.
“Lenders love it when they can rely on you to pay on time,” she writes in The Money Book. “Agree to have your loan payment automatically deducted from your bank account every month, and some lenders will reduce your interest rate by 0.25 percent.” Other tantalizing possibilities await if you consistently pay on time—perhaps the greatest being that your credit score will
go up.
And when it comes time to repay loans, don’t forget that the interest you pay on your student loans is tax deductible. Being a full-time student also gives you several tax incentives, including the Lifetime Learning Credit and the Hope Credit, both of which reduce your taxable income (and generally give you a bit more cash in your refund).
