The search used to entail trips tolibraries and high school or college financial aid offices. Parents can use online electroniccalculators to estimate how much money they should save, andtheir kids can figure out how long it will take them to pay backthose student loans. Most sites below cross-link with each other. Mark Kantrowitz FinAid is a huge, comprehensive site thatprovides free access to a wide variety of financial aidresources. It was created in 1994 by Mark Kantrowitz, a researchscientist at Justsystem Pittsburgh Research Center, and issponsored by the National Association of Student Financial AidAdministrators.
Registrants then receive a listof all currently relevant funding sources.
The registration informationis stored and can be used on subsequent visits. Approximately 500 new scholarships are added to thedatabase daily, so registrants can stay current. Another good database thatlinks to this site is SRN Express from the Scholarship ResourceNetwork, which contains listings of scholarships, fellowships,and grants for undergraduate, graduate, and postdoctoraleducation. Ithas a less intrusive registration process than fastWEB and turnsup a similar number of results. This site's section oneducational loans links to online counseling, details on thevarious lending institutions, and a tool that allows students totrack down a lender's code to complete Stafford and PLUS loanapplications.