It's no secret going to college is not cheap. Students planning to go to school here in Ohio should expect to shell out, at a minimum, $6,000 a year in tuition alone.
But there’s a new way kids are getting instant cash for college?
Max Hayes High School senior David Hicks knows all about it, as he’s getting ready to kiss his adolescent life goodbye.
“Now that high school is ending I'm pretty excited to go to college, it's like a new start," he said.
How's he's getting there, in part, has a lot to do with an online scholarship website his guidance counselor recommended to him. It gives him scholarship money in an instant.
“It’s like a little thing in the corner, that's like yeah you just got $200, congratulations and you're like oh and then you add another grade and it's like another $200," Hicks said describing the site.
It's called ‘Raise.Me’.
Here's how it works:
High school students build a digital progress report, posting their latest grade for each class they take, activities they're involved in and other achievements earned throughout their high school career.
“A student basically that they know they are going to earn a certain amount of money per grade and it even goes a little higher depending if they're taking an honors course for an AP course,” said Robert McCain, Hick’s Guidance Counselor at Max Hayes High School.
As they catalog their achievements, they instantly get scholarship money from universities and colleges near them, based on their progress in school.
“We all know that college is an expensive thing right now, and it also can create roadblocks some students… it gives students more fans to go to college," said McCain.
For Hicks, he has received $4,800 to study computer science at Kent State University, allowing him to be the first in his family to go to college.
“It’s going to help me out in the long run in the future. Instead of my family paying for stuff I'm gonna have to pay for it, so by having us is going to make my life a little bit easier," he said.
Raise.me is online and can be accessed anywhere in the US. Right now, Kent State University is the only school in the Northeast Ohio area to partner with the company to provide scholarships to students at local schools.
