I tell client families that the best way to manage college cost is by building an effective list of colleges the family can afford. An effective list varies widely by family income and the student’s capabilities as a scholar, artist or athlete.

However, there’s no harm in searching for scholarships after a student finishes their applications. Keep in mind that scholarships can be very competitive, only be offered for one year, and some colleges will actually reduce your amount of aid by the value of the scholarship you earn.

Scholarships provide gift money that does not have to be repaid.  That makes scholarships an attractive way to help pay for college.  Federal and state governments, employers, credit and professional organizations, some private companies, foundations, individuals, and religious and civic organizations offer scholarships.  But how can you find out about these?

To search for scholarships, choose a couple of the free scholarship search engines described below.  And remember, any scholarship service that requests money to apply is likely to be a scam.

· FastWeb (fastweb.com) connects you to targeted scholarships based on your profile (strengths, interests, skills, groups).

· SRN (studentscholarshipsearch.com) matches students to appropriate scholarships based on strengths, talents, field of study, sports, achievements and background.

· College Resource Network (collegeresourcenetwork.com) also includes many minority scholarships in its database.

· School Soup (goodcall.com) allows users to search through thousands of awards with no fee or account signup required.

· Cappex (cappex.com) comprises a database of scholarships worth over $11 billion.

· BigFuture (bigfuture.collegeboard.org) offers a searchable scholarship database.

· Scholarships.com compares your background with its database and identifies good matches.

Happy searching!