Kansas City Star | 01/16/2005 | Dig a little and you can unearth scholarships

"The University of Missouri-Kansas City has streamlined its online scholarship process. Its Web site now categorizes its scholarships, allows students to use just one form to apply for several scholarships and offers links to other scholarship-related sites.

“For the most part, they can do all the basic ones from the general university with that one form,” said Debbie Gaggens, assistant director of scholarships at UMKC. “Plus they can use shared recommendations. If they're applying for four different things, they can have one person write one recommendation.”

For a national search of scholarships, she suggests using an online scholarship search tool designed for parents and students. Many are free, including Princeton Review's (princetonreview.com), while others will charge a fee.

“The key to successfully earning college scholarships is to become the savviest scholarship searcher around,” said Robert Franek, publisher of Princeton Review Books, which published Paying for College Without Going Broke."