Website Helps Parents, Students with College Choices
Posted
Daniel Riordan-driordan@timesuniononline.com
Thanks to a contribution from the Kosciusko County Community Foundation, Kosciusko County residents will be able to access full wrap-around services from the National Center for College Costs.
The website, www.indianacollegecosts.org, is free to anyone who wants to use it.
But with KCCF’s contribution, students and parents in Kosciusko County receive the full-service experience the website offers.
Kosciusko County residents are expected to have full wrap-around access to the site within a couple of days.
The site is a comprehensive tool for anyone interested in attending a college in Indiana.
Side-by-side comparisons of costs to go to different schools are available.
Help on where to find money for college and how to apply for federal aid is also on the site.
It also provides help to students on learning what the admission process is like, what colleges look for and ways to save for college.
The creator of the website, Dave Murray, was in Warsaw Thursday afternoon to help walk Foundation employees as well as representatives from different schools serving Kosciusko County through the site.
Representatives from local banks charged with trusts that fund scholarships can also use the site, for a cost, to help better determine how to maximize the most amount of money and determine students with the most need.
Around 200 people are involved each year with helping the Foundation award scholarships to those in need.
“Our community is really blessed in dollars available to kids,” said Suzie Light, executive director of KCCF. “We’re looking for good value to where we’ll spend our dollars. This is going to be an important tool for students to learn about college.”
Murray has gone around the state promoting the site.
Murray was formerly an assistant dean and provost at DePauw.
The program is entirely grant funded.
Besides the website, Murray and his staff hold informational meetings for things like FAFSA and college goals.
A phone application is currently being built for the site.
While the site helps high school students, it is also a tool for adult, non-traditional, military and undocumented students.
It also provides a singular site to compare Indiana colleges and provides links to every college in Indiana as well as how to apply to each one.
This is a timesaver for students who previously had to go to each college’s website to look for information.
“We’ve tried to make it as user-friendly as possible,” said Murray.
Murray said another goal of the site is to help put kids in the right schools to increase retention rates in colleges.
As for scholarship producers, Murray said the website is designed to make the process of selecting students as easy as possible.
