It has always been a dream of mine to attend college. When I was younger, I watched television shows about college students having loads of fun. It sounded like a great experience filled with parties, hanging out with friends and letting the good times roll.

However, when I entered high school, I started learning the real value of college: to get a good education. With a degree, I could have a high-paying job. So with a passion to succeed in life, I expressed my thoughts and concerns about attending a university to my parents. They were very glad that I had chosen the path toward higher education, but my parents were disappointed because they couldn't afford the expenses. Upset and stressed, I took the initiative and started looking for ways to pay for my postsecondary education.

My search for money began on the Internet. I went to every free scholarship search engine available. I spent four to five hours a day looking for scholarships that applied to me. Even though it took much of my time, I dedicated myself to scanning through hundreds of Web sites. It became a part-time job for me. After school, I would do my homework, then search for money on the Internet until I was sleepy. The next day, I would do it all over again. I knew my work was going to pay off in the future.

When I had found almost all the scholarships I could apply for, I sorted them out by deadlines. This gave me an idea of how to prioritize my schedule. Some applications were easy. Others were long, tedious forms. No matter the amount, which ranged from $100 to $40,000, I took each scholarship seriously. All of them were going to fund my goal to attend a college.

With this in my mind, the hardest part began: writing essays. Almost every scholarship required me to compose an essay about my extracurricular activities, commitment to education and career aspirations. Every time I wrote an essay, I saved it on my computer and kept it for later. To perfect my writing, I asked several friends, relatives and teachers to read my work. They gave me advice about what to include and what to leave out.

I continued searching for money and writing essays for about two years. As of now, I have won about 20 percent of all the scholarships I applied for. After many hours of staying up late to finish applications, I managed to receive more than $100,000 in scholarships. With this money, I will be able to attend college for free-no expenses whatsoever.

I feel that a huge burden has been lifted off my shoulders! I don't have to worry about bugging my parents for money they don't have and stressing over the fact that I cannot receive a higher education. Now, I can afford it!

The scholarship search has truly made me a better individual. I have learned the importance of setting a goal and accomplishing it. Even when I received rejection letters, it made me a stronger person. I'm thrilled that I had the opportunity to learn more about my drive to succeed-no matter what obstacles come my way!

Are you an ambitious young person? The top careers in math and science are accessible only to those who complete graduate degrees, a master’s at least or even better, a Ph.D. If you want to make the world a better place, do really exciting science in your own lab, and set an example for others in your community and in your family, then graduate school is definitely in your future.

Besides, you’ll earn way more money. For example, over their lifetimes, Americans who complete a Ph.D. earn $1.3 million more than those who stop at the baccalaureate degree, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. That’s real money.

But doesn’t graduate school cost a lot? Not necessarily. Let’s explore some of the myths, and some of the secrets, about funding graduate-level education.

First of all, it’s not called “financial aid.” It’s called “support” or “financial support.” Financial aid is an undergraduate term. And, unlike most undergraduates, you’ll be considered an independent student; your parent’s financial data are no longer required.

Are you on full financial aid as an undergrad? You may not have to pay application fees to apply to graduate school! Ask your financial aid officer to prepare a letter (or increasingly, make a call) stating that you are a strong scholar on full financial aid, who needs a waiver of application fees. This doesn’t work every time, but it works often. If you need to provide a credit card number to use an on-line application site, they’ll give you a code to enter. Ask, and you shall receive.

Next, and this is a shocker: It’s frequently cheaper to go to an expensive school than to choose a supposedly inexpensive option. Elite, expensive schools tend to conduct a cost-of-attendance allowance, taking in all aspects of your unique situation, whereas the local state university is likely to offer you some tuition relief, if that. The schools that you think are most expensive may in fact be cheaper for you to attend, if you can get in. First big tip: Don’t compare schools by comparing their tuitions. Your goal is to find a way not to have to pay that tuition at all.

Don’t want to pay tuition? Consider going directly for the Ph.D. Full-time Ph.D. students often don’t pay tuition. If you think you’ll ever get a Ph.D., going straight from an undergraduate program into a Ph.D. program will save you money and time. (Don’t worry; you’ll still get a master’s degree. The master’s degree is built into the doctoral degree plan.) Some of the most elite universities in the country prefer to take their doctoral candidates straight out of undergrad.

As a related point, public universities with in-state and out-of-state tuition rates often don’t charge tuition to Ph.D. candidates, thus making your residency status moot.

Next myth? The wisdom of pay-as-you-go. For all types of degree programs, it is frequently cheaper to go full time, even if you have to borrow significantly, than it is for you to get out, work, save money, and return to school. Why? Because you’re paying for your education with undergraduate level earnings! Ph.D.’s earn almost $30,000 per year more than baccalaureate-degree holders. It’s smarter to pay for your education with post-graduate-degree earnings, rather than the entry-level salaries you’ll command with just a bachelor’s degree.

The earlier you invest in education the more dividends you will reap over your lifetime. Delaying graduate school is just a bad financial choice. Besides, your undergraduate loans will be deferred while you’re in graduate school, so don’t worry about them.

What about working while in your graduate program? Sure, but why not make such work part of your educational process itself? You do this through what are called assistantships. There are three main types: teaching, research, and graduate assistantships (TA, RA, and GA, respectively). Assistantships are an odd hybrid beast, partly an honor, partly a half-time job, and partly an apprenticeship. There’s nothing quite like them in corporate America.

With a teaching assistantship, you’ll teach undergraduate classes and labs in your field. This is an elite assignment. You are selected by the department as a whole, and good grades (at least in the discipline), and prior teaching or tutoring experience of any kind are big pluses.

With a research assistantship, you’ll assist a professor or a P.I. (principal investigator) with research projects. You are selected by the professor or lab chief, personally. Because of that, it is the personal connection that matters most. If your interests closely match ongoing research, you might be a good candidate for a research assistantship.

Graduate assistantships are more like regular jobs. Graduate assistants run I.T., educational support programs, and administrative functions of all types at all major universities. You get these the same way you get jobs, by having needed skills, being reliable, being in the right place at the right time, and by hustling professors, lab chiefs, program directors and deans until somebody relents and gives you an appointment!

Assistantships usually involve a full waiver of tuition and a stipend. Stipends can vary from a few thousand dollars to as much as $30,000, or more, per year. In fact, many graduate students, especially those in the math and sciences, earn more in grad school than their old college pals do in entry-level jobs!

Savvy graduate students look all over campus for assistantships, e.g., an engineering student might be a TA teaching Arabic language classes; a math or science student might be a tutor for the football team (a very cool assignment, by the way); or a business student might work as a GA in the graduate career placement office for the MBA program.

One problem with assistantships of all types is that they are selected via different means, and at different times of the year, at every program in the country. Indeed, even within the same department, different professors, lab chiefs, and P.I.’s are going to have different processes to identify and select graduate assistants. It’s your job to discover how it is done at the universities you’re interested in.

Assistantships, and in fact, many forms of funding and support, are reserved for Ph.D. students at most major research universities. If you want to get the same opportunities while you pursue a master’s degree, apply for a master’s degree from a college or university that doesn’t offer the Ph.D. degree in your discipline.

How about free room and board? If you have been a residence hall advisor as an undergraduate, why not keep at it? Plus, if you have native fluency in a foreign language, you can be dorm mom or dad in a language dorm, or in the international house. Also, sometimes in the summer you can get an assignment as chaperone for high school students studying at university for the first time in special summer programs.

Fellowships and grants are another great source of money for graduate school. Fellowships and grants are really the same thing. Fellowships are just big grants, and grants are just small fellowships.

Fellowships and grants come in two flavors: internal and external. You learn about internal fellowships and grants from the institution that you are applying to. You should inquire as part of your normal process of applying, but to really work the grant system, it helps to already be on campus. On every campus, there is a grants book, or a grants committee, that has the complete list of funding sources available on that campus. I’ve seen grant money for single dads, to buy the books for single mothers, and to pay tuition for students studying religion or spirituality, just to name a few examples of the types of obscure funding available. It’s your job to find this book or committee and check it out.

You can learn about external fellowships and grants from such books as Harvard College Guide to Grants, Foundation Grants to Individuals, and the Grants Register (actual title: Annual Register of Grant Support, but no one calls it that.) There’s a good list of these books in my book, Graduate Admissions Essays. You can also go online, to such sources as finaid.org and fastweb.com, but the books are much better. For example, there is a scholarship for people who knit, which you would never find online, but if you saw this in a book, you might suddenly remember your latent interest in knitting, if you understand my point.

The books are vastly better than the web sites, so don’t be lazy: Get down to the library and check them out. They’ll be in the reference section.

By the way, if you go to interview at a graduate program, especially in the sciences, they are likely to ask you what scholarships, grants, and other funding sources you’ve applied for. I recommend that all students apply for at least four external (or, third-party) scholarship sources. Faculty don’t really care if you win an NSF grant, for example, so much as they care that you understand that it is your job to be applying for this type of external funding. So, show you understand the process by being able to name several scholarships, fellowships, and grants that you’ve applied for.

You can bridge the gap between your need and what you can hustle up through fellowships, assistantships, and waivers by borrowing money for your graduate studies. Of course you should not borrow a small fortune to study something with extremely modest career options, but if your education supports sensible career plans, don’t be afraid to borrow even significant amounts of money to reach your goals. If you are a U.S. citizen, with a pulse, you can borrow $18,500 per year for graduate study in federally guaranteed student loans. Through banks you can borrow even more. The point is that the money is there if your interest is there.

Remember, you can pay the money back through your significantly increased earnings.

Finally, there is something very odd about financing graduate school: You cannot tell how much it will cost you until you apply and are admitted. You have to take a “leap of faith” and apply, both to be admitted and for various sources of funding, before you know how you are ever going to pay for all this. Be brave, make the decision to attend graduate school, work closely with your faculty advisors, apply to several schools, and you will be able to find the money for your graduate education.

My best wishes for your success,

Donald Asher