Latest / The Steve Harvey Morning Show / Financial Tips: She educates you on how to avoid student loan debt and how to simplify scholarship applications.

Transcript

Financial Tips: She educates you on how to avoid student loan debt and how to simplify scholarship applications. · The Steve Harvey Morning Show

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Welcome to my show.
• 0:01
  Speaker 2: I'm Rashon McDonald, a host of Money Making Conversations Masterclass,
• 0:04
  Speaker 2: where we encourage people to stop reading other people's success
• 0:07
  Speaker 2: stories and start planning your own. Now, you don't want
• 0:10
  Speaker 2: to miss an episode, so please take a moment right
• 0:12
  Speaker 2: now to follow or subscribe to Money Making Conversations Masterclass.
• 0:16
  Speaker 1: It's free.
• 0:17
  Speaker 2: You can follow me on iHeartRadio, app, Spotify, Apple Podcasts,
• 0:21
  Speaker 2: or wherever you listen to your podcast. New Money Making
• 0:24
  Speaker 2: Conversations Masterclass episodes drop daily. I want to keep you
• 0:28
  Speaker 2: on alert because my guests provide tips on how you
• 0:30
  Speaker 2: can uplift your community, improve your financial planning, motivation, or
• 0:34
  Speaker 2: advice on how to be a successful entrepreneur. Now, let's
• 0:38
  Speaker 2: get this podcast started. My guess is the founder and
• 0:40
  Speaker 2: CEO of this scholarship system. Like many families, Jocelyn was
• 0:45
  Speaker 2: middle income. She wasn't a straight a student, all star athlete.
• 0:49
  Speaker 2: You still manage to graduate completely debt free by securing
• 0:53
  Speaker 2: one hundred and twenty six three hundred and fifty dollars
• 0:56
  Speaker 2: in scholarships.
• 0:57
  Speaker 1: It didn't happen by chance.
• 0:58
  Speaker 2: She developed a prove repeatable strategy that transformed the daunting
• 1:03
  Speaker 2: scholarship search into a clear, step by step system. Please
• 1:08
  Speaker 2: welcome the money making conversation Mastic class. Joscelyn Pearson. How
• 1:11
  Speaker 2: you doing, Joscelyn, I am wonderful.
• 1:14
  Speaker 3: Thank you so much for having.
• 1:15
  Speaker 2: Me one hundred and twenty six thousand dollars and scholarship.
• 1:20
  Speaker 1: Was that for over a four year period? Did you
• 1:21
  Speaker 1: go to graduate school?
• 1:23
  Speaker 4: Talk to us that is only undergraduate It is over
• 1:26
  Speaker 4: four years. That's actually a very important point with the
• 1:30
  Speaker 4: scholarship system. My university did not offer me a free ride,
• 1:35
  Speaker 4: so I had to accumulate my way to getting college
• 1:40
  Speaker 4: paid for, which I like to joke is the mere
• 1:42
  Speaker 4: mortals way to going to.
• 1:43
  Speaker 3: College without taking on tons of debt.
• 1:45
  Speaker 4: But I was not one of those students where you know,
• 1:47
  Speaker 4: we see them in the papers ten million dollars in
• 1:50
  Speaker 4: offers and they get their choice. I had to scrounge
• 1:53
  Speaker 4: together some funds. But that's, in my opinion, the more
• 1:58
  Speaker 4: likely way for an average family student to get there.
• 2:01
  Speaker 3: And so it was.
• 2:02
  Speaker 4: It was actually gradually accumulating my way. But each year
• 2:05
  Speaker 4: I snuck by where not only did I have enough
• 2:07
  Speaker 4: to cover that year, but I actually received an overage check.
• 2:10
  Speaker 2: That's awesome because I realized that, you know, you know,
• 2:14
  Speaker 2: people trying to pay back loans. People graduate from college
• 2:17
  Speaker 2: and they got things they want to start their life,
• 2:19
  Speaker 2: got that tremendous debt tied to their name. Because it's
• 2:22
  Speaker 2: really easy to get a loan. They're just signed it.
• 2:24
  Speaker 2: They don't credit check you, they just give you the money.
• 2:27
  Speaker 2: But the payback is daunting, and now people are trying.
• 2:30
  Speaker 1: To ask for forgiveness.
• 2:33
  Speaker 2: Please don't allow us to pay it back when you
• 2:35
  Speaker 2: have a system right now, the scholarship system that allows
• 2:39
  Speaker 2: people to get scholarship. When you use their word step
• 2:41
  Speaker 2: by step, educate us own that, Jocelyn Sure.
• 2:46
  Speaker 4: One of the reasons I've found a lot of families.
• 2:49
  Speaker 4: Let me back up, I think most families want scholarships, right.
• 2:52
  Speaker 4: We all want free money, other people's money to help
• 2:55
  Speaker 4: pay for college before we have to sign the dotted
• 2:57
  Speaker 4: line for that debt. But where we get stuck a
• 3:01
  Speaker 4: lot of times is the overwhelm they say to their student,
• 3:04
  Speaker 4: are you applying for scholarships?
• 3:06
  Speaker 2: Yeah?
• 3:06
  Speaker 4: Mom, Yeah, I'm getting there. And next thing we know,
• 3:09
  Speaker 4: they submitted a couple applications that were easy put in
• 3:12
  Speaker 4: there right in front of them, and that's it. But really,
• 3:14
  Speaker 4: they probably did go to Google. They probably did google scholarships.
• 3:18
  Speaker 4: They probably saw tons of scams and things that didn't
• 3:21
  Speaker 4: pertain to them, got overwhelmed and quit. And so when
• 3:25
  Speaker 4: I got my free ride, when I got paid to
• 3:27
  Speaker 4: go to college, I had friends and.
• 3:29
  Speaker 3: Family ask me how did you do it?
• 3:31
  Speaker 4: And when I was walking them through it, I sounded
• 3:33
  Speaker 4: like a broken record, right, And that's when it dawned
• 3:36
  Speaker 4: on me, Oh my gosh, these are clear steps. These
• 3:39
  Speaker 4: are repeatable steps that they just need to follow. And
• 3:42
  Speaker 4: I think that's why our families have successes because instead
• 3:45
  Speaker 4: of getting overwhelmed and just giving students and families this
• 3:48
  Speaker 4: big task of go get money, we say, okay, right now,
• 3:52
  Speaker 4: let's just.
• 3:53
  Speaker 3: Set a plan.
• 3:54
  Speaker 4: Okay, next step is okay, right now, let's understand what's
• 3:57
  Speaker 4: the bill?
• 3:57
  Speaker 3: Okay, next step?
• 3:58
  Speaker 1: All right?
• 3:59
  Speaker 4: This so it's one step out of time, and by
• 4:01
  Speaker 4: breaking down this big, scary, overwhelming process into a micro
• 4:05
  Speaker 4: focused step out of one step.
• 4:07
  Speaker 3: Out of time, that's how we can get to that
• 4:09
  Speaker 3: finish line.
• 4:10
  Speaker 1: Okay.
• 4:10
  Speaker 3: So that's why we call it the six Steps to scholarships.
• 4:12
  Speaker 2: Okay, we're early in the conversation, but you brought it up.
• 4:15
  Speaker 2: Is there a website. This guide us to the website,
• 4:18
  Speaker 2: and then out of that website conversation, I want to
• 4:20
  Speaker 2: talk about scams because I want to let people know
• 4:23
  Speaker 2: that there are truly scams out there and we want
• 4:26
  Speaker 2: to avoid them because you have some next step. But
• 4:28
  Speaker 2: let's talk about that website first. But we just before
• 4:31
  Speaker 2: we discuss scams.
• 4:32
  Speaker 3: Yeah, so they can go to the Scholarship System dot com.
• 4:34
  Speaker 2: We do tons of freecuresystem dot com.
• 4:38
  Speaker 4: Okay, thank you for rereading that. Yes, so the Scholarship
• 4:42
  Speaker 4: System dot com. And we are also on Instagram, TikTok,
• 4:45
  Speaker 4: all over social media. So we primarily actually coach parents
• 4:51
  Speaker 4: and then their students can implement the process. But it
• 4:54
  Speaker 4: really does help having that parents buy in to get
• 4:58
  Speaker 4: their students motivated and going to the scams. Like you asked,
• 5:02
  Speaker 4: this is also an important piece for parents to understand.
• 5:06
  Speaker 4: So a lot of parents will ask me, well, can
• 5:08
  Speaker 4: we just do it for them me my ethics, my
• 5:12
  Speaker 4: moral boundaries. Absolutely not. But even more so, I have
• 5:16
  Speaker 4: interviewed committees that have given out millions and millions of
• 5:19
  Speaker 4: dollars and they say, sure, we can't prove it, but
• 5:22
  Speaker 4: we know when a parent is doing the application for
• 5:25
  Speaker 4: their child. We know, and so we don't want to
• 5:28
  Speaker 4: cross the boundary of doing it for them. But where
• 5:30
  Speaker 4: can a parent help building that list and so understanding
• 5:35
  Speaker 4: the list of scholarships, helping them build that understanding what's
• 5:38
  Speaker 4: a scam and what's not. This is so perfect for
• 5:41
  Speaker 4: a parent to use their skills to help their student
• 5:43
  Speaker 4: and set them up for success.
• 5:45
  Speaker 3: Now, I will say, we do have a free webinar.
• 5:47
  Speaker 4: On that website at the Scholarship system dot com where
• 5:51
  Speaker 4: we talk about the how to spot the scams in
• 5:54
  Speaker 4: more details. They want visuals if they're a visual kind
• 5:57
  Speaker 4: of person. Okay, but here's a quick breakdown. When we're
• 6:00
  Speaker 4: talking about scholarships. If we can knock it out in
• 6:04
  Speaker 4: five or ten minutes. If it has words like easy
• 6:09
  Speaker 4: enter to win, weekly drawing, monthly drunk these it's scam.
• 6:15
  Speaker 3: Might be harsh. However, they're based on luck.
• 6:19
  Speaker 4: They're basically a sweepstake, and many of these organizations are
• 6:24
  Speaker 4: selling the information. They are actually using this as a
• 6:28
  Speaker 4: way to collect marketing information, collect emails, selling them away.
• 6:33
  Speaker 4: How do I know this? I'll tell you what my
• 6:35
  Speaker 4: email that I used for doing these. So for those
• 6:37
  Speaker 4: parents that are hearing this and saying, oh, no, we've
• 6:39
  Speaker 4: been doing those. I did them too. I wasted an
• 6:42
  Speaker 4: entire year before I figured out which ones to focus on.
• 6:45
  Speaker 4: My email had over twenty thousand emails. And this was,
• 6:51
  Speaker 4: you know, over a decade ago. This is before we
• 6:53
  Speaker 4: were getting twenty thousand a day.
• 6:55
  Speaker 3: But that they flooded me by selling my email.
• 6:59
  Speaker 4: And so we don't if it's based on luck, if
• 7:01
  Speaker 4: it says enter to win weekly drawing, if they just
• 7:04
  Speaker 4: have to write a sentence to win, that those are not.
• 7:08
  Speaker 3: Worth our time.
• 7:09
  Speaker 1: Now let's go talk about some this. I'm talking to Joscelyn.
• 7:12
  Speaker 2: She is the incredible founder and CEO of the Scholarship system.
• 7:16
  Speaker 2: She secured for four years, one hundred and twenty six thousand,
• 7:20
  Speaker 2: three hundred and fifty dollars in scholarships for herself.
• 7:23
  Speaker 1: Let's go with this first one.
• 7:24
  Speaker 2: It's too late or too early to apply, Joscelyn, your thoughts?
• 7:28
  Speaker 3: Yes, I love this one.
• 7:30
  Speaker 4: So I always joke I speak to parents with juniors
• 7:34
  Speaker 4: in high school or younger, and they say, oh, it's
• 7:37
  Speaker 4: early yet, we don't need to focus on.
• 7:39
  Speaker 3: Scholarships just yet.
• 7:40
  Speaker 4: And then I speak to my senior, my families with
• 7:43
  Speaker 4: seniors in high school and they say, oh my gosh,
• 7:46
  Speaker 4: we're freaking out.
• 7:46
  Speaker 3: We're behind the curve.
• 7:48
  Speaker 4: And I always joke, where was the school year in
• 7:50
  Speaker 4: between junior year and high school and senior year in
• 7:52
  Speaker 4: high school where they actually realize now's the time. So
• 7:56
  Speaker 4: it's just it always happens where we're in junior year.
• 7:59
  Speaker 4: We think we've got plenty of time. We get to
• 8:00
  Speaker 4: senior year and it is crazy. Our student has so
• 8:03
  Speaker 4: much stuff on their schedule. We're trying to get admissions
• 8:06
  Speaker 4: under our belt, BAFSA, all these things, and then we're
• 8:10
  Speaker 4: waiting until spring to do scholarships.
• 8:13
  Speaker 3: So the challenge with that is we.
• 8:15
  Speaker 4: Already missed dozens and dozens and dozens of deadlines that
• 8:18
  Speaker 4: our student could have submitted not only the fall semester
• 8:21
  Speaker 4: of their senior year, but actually junior year in high school.
• 8:24
  Speaker 4: If I could, I would have all families being in
• 8:27
  Speaker 4: this by spring semester junior year, no later. That said,
• 8:31
  Speaker 4: the other half of that myth is it's never too late.
• 8:34
  Speaker 4: So earlier I mentioned my six figures in scholarships was not.
• 8:38
  Speaker 3: In one big win. It wasn't even by the end
• 8:40
  Speaker 3: of high school.
• 8:41
  Speaker 4: I worked my way to it over the four years
• 8:45
  Speaker 4: I was in college. So I continued applying every single
• 8:49
  Speaker 4: year in school. In fact, my final check I cashed
• 8:52
  Speaker 4: was on my way home from college graduation, and that
• 8:55
  Speaker 4: is I did not miss speak. I won five hundred
• 8:58
  Speaker 4: dollars in my senior year in college. So for those
• 9:01
  Speaker 4: that are listening to this thinking, oh man, my student's
• 9:03
  Speaker 4: heading to college soon, or or they're already there, we
• 9:07
  Speaker 4: missed the bus, that's not true either.
• 9:10
  Speaker 2: Wow, that only here's something I was a student. I'm
• 9:13
  Speaker 2: gonna taste them. I went to college seven years. Okay,
• 9:17
  Speaker 2: I did lead dead free because I had loaned not long.
• 9:20
  Speaker 2: I had financial aid that they meet a page for
• 9:23
  Speaker 2: my college program because of my parents' income. So this
• 9:26
  Speaker 2: leads perfectly to me. The only only perfect students are
• 9:30
  Speaker 2: low income families qualify for scholarships. Your response to that.
• 9:35
  Speaker 4: Yes, so this is the other side is okay, Well,
• 9:38
  Speaker 4: we're willing to do the work. However, we've been told
• 9:40
  Speaker 4: we make too much money, or my student is not
• 9:44
  Speaker 4: a superstar athlete. I will spare you all from too
• 9:48
  Speaker 4: many embarrassing details about my athletic skills. But there was
• 9:51
  Speaker 4: no way I was getting any athletic scholarships, but also
• 9:55
  Speaker 4: my SAT score. I didn't even take the act. My
• 9:58
  Speaker 4: SAT was below average. I had to find the ones
• 10:01
  Speaker 4: that matched me. And believe it or not, there are
• 10:04
  Speaker 4: tons of scholarships out there that don't even ask for
• 10:06
  Speaker 4: GPA or maybe it's a three point zero or higher
• 10:10
  Speaker 4: requirement for the scholarship system. We actually give out thousands
• 10:14
  Speaker 4: of dollars in scholarships every year for the last decade
• 10:17
  Speaker 4: as well.
• 10:17
  Speaker 2: You know my wife and that we have a scholarship
• 10:19
  Speaker 2: program at the University of Houston give like an annual
• 10:22
  Speaker 2: least three or four students five thousand dollars scholarships who
• 10:26
  Speaker 2: are in stam or the College of Optometry. So with
• 10:30
  Speaker 2: that being said, what is a good scholarship Joscelyn.
• 10:36
  Speaker 4: Yes, So that's another one of the myths is all
• 10:39
  Speaker 4: the good scholarships are gone, right, And so that's where
• 10:43
  Speaker 4: a lot of students think, Oh, it's the Coca Cola,
• 10:45
  Speaker 4: the doctor Pepper, the free ride that the university gives out.
• 10:50
  Speaker 4: It's the one big win that gives them a free ride.
• 10:53
  Speaker 4: The thing is, in reality, like I said, for most families,
• 10:57
  Speaker 4: that's not going to be how we're going to pay
• 10:59
  Speaker 4: for calle that was not my path, and for many
• 11:02
  Speaker 4: of our families that have had success, it's not theirs either.
• 11:05
  Speaker 3: We're talking about smaller dollar, low hanging fruit, local scholarships.
• 11:11
  Speaker 4: This way we can slowly accumulate our way, we can
• 11:14
  Speaker 4: add up to a free ride five hundred, one thousand,
• 11:17
  Speaker 4: two thousand dollars, four thousand dollars.
• 11:20
  Speaker 3: But I would say most of our families their wins are.
• 11:24
  Speaker 4: In the five hundred to five thousand dollars range. We're
• 11:28
  Speaker 4: not talking about ten, fifteen thousand, hundred thousand dollars scholarships.
• 11:33
  Speaker 2: And that's what we did. We'd at five thousand dollars range.
• 11:35
  Speaker 2: And as a student, I think that does make a difference.
• 11:39
  Speaker 3: Oh, that's huge.
• 11:40
  Speaker 2: So we feel blessed to be in that position. And
• 11:42
  Speaker 2: let's talk about the work. Because I was in college
• 11:46
  Speaker 2: long time ago. Oh boy, just sitting down there trying
• 11:50
  Speaker 2: to fill out these applications.
• 11:52
  Speaker 1: It was just so daunting to me. Johncelyn, talk to
• 11:56
  Speaker 1: me about how.
• 11:56
  Speaker 2: Do you just inspire not only the parent, but a
• 12:00
  Speaker 2: child that want to fill out applications?
• 12:02
  Speaker 1: What are you offering to the table? What advice?
• 12:05
  Speaker 2: Right?
• 12:05
  Speaker 4: Yeah, And that's such a perfect So that fourth myth
• 12:09
  Speaker 4: is about it just has to take tons of time.
• 12:11
  Speaker 4: And I do want to say this is not something
• 12:14
  Speaker 4: that does not require work, right, So there's no big
• 12:17
  Speaker 4: red easy button that just does it for us. However,
• 12:21
  Speaker 4: when we do have clear steps, when we have a
• 12:23
  Speaker 4: clear process, when we have a system to follow, it
• 12:26
  Speaker 4: can feel a lot less daunting. And that's actually also
• 12:30
  Speaker 4: why we loved calling it the scholarship system is because
• 12:33
  Speaker 4: it's rinse and repeat. So where that free webinar on
• 12:38
  Speaker 4: our website, I mentioned I've got a visual and it's
• 12:41
  Speaker 4: the amount of money I accumulated in a bar charts
• 12:43
  Speaker 4: growing up up up each year.
• 12:46
  Speaker 3: But the amount of work, the amount of effort is opposite.
• 12:49
  Speaker 4: It's inverse, right, and so it's a line that's just
• 12:51
  Speaker 4: going down, down, down each year. Why because once I
• 12:55
  Speaker 4: got a few winning essays, once I was able to
• 12:58
  Speaker 4: document everything that was repeated.
• 13:01
  Speaker 3: You know, I was able to create in.
• 13:03
  Speaker 4: My Google Drive lists of out my activities. When I
• 13:07
  Speaker 4: was able to create documents of what kind of information
• 13:10
  Speaker 4: do they frequently ask? These little tricks save us time
• 13:14
  Speaker 4: and so that's where we can rinse and repeat. So
• 13:18
  Speaker 4: I love reusing essays in the right way. We have
• 13:21
  Speaker 4: to tweak them a little bit each time.
• 13:23
  Speaker 5: Please don't go anywhere. We'll be right back with more
• 13:25
  Speaker 5: money Making Conversations Masterclass. No, I need for you to
• 13:28
  Speaker 5: do me a favor right now to follow our subscribe
• 13:32
  Speaker 5: to money Making Conversation. It's free and you can find
• 13:35
  Speaker 5: it on the iHeartRadio app, Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or wherever
• 13:40
  Speaker 5: you get your podcasts. Please do me that favor, follow
• 13:44
  Speaker 5: or subscribe money Making Conversations. Welcome back to money Making
• 13:51
  Speaker 5: Conversations master Class, hosted by me Rashaun McDonald. Money Making
• 13:55
  Speaker 5: Conversation master Class continues online at Moneymaking Conversations dot com
• 13:59
  Speaker 5: and follow money Making Conversation Masterclass on Facebook, X and Instagram.
• 14:04
  Speaker 2: I gotta ask you this quick question, Jocelyn. You know
• 14:06
  Speaker 2: other scholarship system and AI. AI is such a tool
• 14:11
  Speaker 2: as being danced around. We talked about repeating paragraphs or
• 14:16
  Speaker 2: pei there.
• 14:17
  Speaker 1: Why you want this scholarship?
• 14:18
  Speaker 2: Does AI in your system play a role in enabling
• 14:22
  Speaker 2: students to qualify for scholarships?
• 14:25
  Speaker 6: I love that you asked this, so I have been
• 14:30
  Speaker 6: trying to figure out ways to use it in an
• 14:32
  Speaker 6: ethical manner right and of course to use it in
• 14:35
  Speaker 6: ways that do not get them disqualified because and I
• 14:38
  Speaker 6: know this isn't perfect, but even we run our winners
• 14:40
  Speaker 6: through AI and say did you write this?
• 14:42
  Speaker 4: And I know it's been known to claim credit for
• 14:45
  Speaker 4: things that it didn't right, but it is pretty good
• 14:47
  Speaker 4: at finding ones that it did. We even this last
• 14:50
  Speaker 4: year had students that submitted for our.
• 14:53
  Speaker 3: Scholarship and it said you could tell they just.
• 14:56
  Speaker 4: Copied and pasted an essay out of a out of
• 14:58
  Speaker 4: chat GPT and it said enter your personal information here,
• 15:01
  Speaker 4: and they didn't even read it thoroughly enough to replace
• 15:04
  Speaker 4: that enter your personal information here line of text.
• 15:09
  Speaker 3: So there is the right way to use AI, and
• 15:11
  Speaker 3: there is definitely the wrong way of AI.
• 15:13
  Speaker 4: And so actually we just released Tests, right, So Tess
• 15:18
  Speaker 4: is our AI Scholarship Assistant. She's a twenty four to
• 15:21
  Speaker 4: seven sidekick for our families in the scholarship system.
• 15:24
  Speaker 3: Isn't that?
• 15:25
  Speaker 4: So Tests we got her from TSS, from the acronym
• 15:28
  Speaker 4: for the scholarship system. You know, one of my favorite
• 15:31
  Speaker 4: things about Tests is she's been she's got a download
• 15:35
  Speaker 4: from my brain, and so you can just go in
• 15:37
  Speaker 4: there and ask her questions and you're basically getting.
• 15:40
  Speaker 3: The response that you get from me.
• 15:41
  Speaker 4: Even if it's at midnight on your favorite Saturday, that
• 15:44
  Speaker 4: you're partying it up and doing scholarships right, And so
• 15:47
  Speaker 4: we've just were able to serve people better when used
• 15:51
  Speaker 4: the right way. Now, with with great power comes great responsibility.
• 15:56
  Speaker 4: But I think she does a good job at coaching
• 15:58
  Speaker 4: without doing right.
• 16:00
  Speaker 2: Let's start going to tell you some I have something
• 16:02
  Speaker 2: a screenshot from our social media page. I mean, this
• 16:07
  Speaker 2: young lady delivers the questions and the answers on social
• 16:11
  Speaker 2: media as well as a website.
• 16:12
  Speaker 1: The scholarship system.
• 16:13
  Speaker 2: Let's start here, why some social middle class families are
• 16:16
  Speaker 2: paint sixty thousand dollars less for college and how are
• 16:20
  Speaker 2: they doing it?
• 16:21
  Speaker 4: Jocelyn so well, so this is where we're of course
• 16:26
  Speaker 4: talking about scholarships.
• 16:27
  Speaker 6: Right.
• 16:28
  Speaker 4: So when we want to with middle class families, we
• 16:31
  Speaker 4: call these in the income gap. So we're not we
• 16:35
  Speaker 4: can't just cut a check to pay for college. We
• 16:38
  Speaker 4: also are not going to get this free ride because
• 16:40
  Speaker 4: of our income level, right, and so where can we
• 16:44
  Speaker 4: quickly secure ways to reduce our price of college? That's
• 16:48
  Speaker 4: where we're going after these scholarships and they can add
• 16:51
  Speaker 4: up our families. I would say, well, I got six figures.
• 16:55
  Speaker 4: But we've had many families that have gotten six figures,
• 16:57
  Speaker 4: but that dollar amount that is something over four years.
• 17:00
  Speaker 3: Certainly many of them have accomplished.
• 17:03
  Speaker 1: Wow. Now, my whole thing is that there are so
• 17:08
  Speaker 1: many myths.
• 17:09
  Speaker 2: There's so many things that stop parents and students from
• 17:12
  Speaker 2: going to school and applying. Now the number one college
• 17:17
  Speaker 2: funding myth that keeps middle class parents, you believe, paying
• 17:22
  Speaker 2: full price versus pursuing scholarships opportunities. What do you think that?
• 17:28
  Speaker 2: Is it the process? Not knowing where the gold like
• 17:31
  Speaker 2: you have a platform they can go to. What is
• 17:34
  Speaker 2: stopping them? And also, why are we stereotyping our children
• 17:40
  Speaker 2: and saying they can't get scholarships because of where they
• 17:43
  Speaker 2: stand in the class rankings or they stand as a students,
• 17:47
  Speaker 2: And that's not.
• 17:47
  Speaker 3: True, right, And that's I think exactly.
• 17:51
  Speaker 4: What I was speaking about earlier, right, is that we
• 17:53
  Speaker 4: stopped before we even get started.
• 17:55
  Speaker 6: Right.
• 17:56
  Speaker 4: So many families, I've had families tell me, well, so
• 18:00
  Speaker 4: and so I work with They submitted FAFSA, for example.
• 18:03
  Speaker 4: FAFSA is a free application through the government. Every family
• 18:07
  Speaker 4: should submit FAFSA. And if you don't get anything through
• 18:12
  Speaker 4: the government, it's still some colleges require FAFSA in order
• 18:16
  Speaker 4: to get money from them. But a coworker says, well,
• 18:20
  Speaker 4: I didn't get anything through FAFSA, so you shouldn't submit it.
• 18:23
  Speaker 4: I met a family they missed out on seventeen thousand
• 18:25
  Speaker 4: dollars a year because they took this advice. They went
• 18:28
  Speaker 4: in her second year saying, we can't afford this anymore,
• 18:31
  Speaker 4: and they said, well, let me pull up your FAFSA.
• 18:33
  Speaker 4: Oh wait, you didn't do it because someone told them so.
• 18:38
  Speaker 4: And that's where there's a lot of naysayers. We actually
• 18:41
  Speaker 4: so in the scholarship system. We call our families hashtag
• 18:44
  Speaker 4: rebel families. Okay, if you can't tell, I have a
• 18:46
  Speaker 4: little bit of a rebellious bone in me. And so
• 18:50
  Speaker 4: we say, we are saying no to the broken system. Right,
• 18:53
  Speaker 4: we're saying no to the.
• 18:55
  Speaker 3: White picket fence.
• 18:56
  Speaker 4: Has to come with this decades of student und debt.
• 18:58
  Speaker 4: You mentioned the student debt takes on average twenty one years.
• 19:02
  Speaker 4: Twenty one years, So that means if your student is
• 19:04
  Speaker 4: borrowing to pay for college at eighteen, they're going to
• 19:07
  Speaker 4: be paying on it for longer than they've been alive.
• 19:10
  Speaker 2: Now, that is why a word that I had never
• 19:13
  Speaker 2: heard a faf SAW FAFSA. I've I viewed a lot
• 19:19
  Speaker 2: of people in the scholarship of opportunity lane, but this
• 19:24
  Speaker 2: is the first time I've heard faf SAW. Please educate
• 19:29
  Speaker 2: me as well as about audience exactly what that is.
• 19:32
  Speaker 4: Sure, and so this is technically like beyond private scholarships,
• 19:37
  Speaker 4: but it is our first line of defense. So when
• 19:39
  Speaker 4: I'm talking about the scholarship system, if you go to
• 19:42
  Speaker 4: my YouTube channel, yes my bread and butter is scholarships.
• 19:45
  Speaker 4: But ultimately we just want to pay for college. We
• 19:48
  Speaker 4: want a free ride. How do we get there. We
• 19:50
  Speaker 4: get there by combining every possible source of money. The
• 19:55
  Speaker 4: first and foremost is government funding. So and this is
• 19:59
  Speaker 4: even money that states have set aside. For example, I
• 20:02
  Speaker 4: live in the state of South Carolina. They have something
• 20:04
  Speaker 4: called Palmetto Fellows and this is as long as your
• 20:08
  Speaker 4: student hit certain numbers, and then you submit FAFSA. Your
• 20:11
  Speaker 4: student automatically receives this money every single year as long
• 20:13
  Speaker 4: as they maintain certain numbers. So this is there's need
• 20:17
  Speaker 4: based money. But it also by submitting this government form,
• 20:21
  Speaker 4: the universities use it to look at your family's financial
• 20:24
  Speaker 4: situation and decide what money they will give you, and
• 20:27
  Speaker 4: also certain states will use it to decide what money
• 20:30
  Speaker 4: they will give you, so our families know, yes, we
• 20:33
  Speaker 4: want to go after those small dollar scholarships one hundred percent.
• 20:36
  Speaker 4: But in step two, when we're covering paying for college
• 20:40
  Speaker 4: one oh one, we've got to know about FAFSA and
• 20:43
  Speaker 4: all the other types of money out there, because we
• 20:45
  Speaker 4: want to know.
• 20:46
  Speaker 3: No rock should be left unturned.
• 20:48
  Speaker 4: We want every possible free dollar to get us to
• 20:53
  Speaker 4: close that gap to the free ride.
• 20:55
  Speaker 1: Okay, the scholarship system.
• 20:56
  Speaker 2: Let's walk us through the process of going to your
• 20:59
  Speaker 2: web site and how it works and how you assist
• 21:03
  Speaker 2: a parent or a student who's eighteen years of old.
• 21:06
  Speaker 2: I'm assuming they have to be eighteen years old to
• 21:08
  Speaker 2: go to your website and use it or not. I
• 21:10
  Speaker 2: don't want to give out any incorrect information.
• 21:13
  Speaker 4: We have many students that watch our videos. There's no
• 21:15
  Speaker 4: problem with that. They can go to our YouTube, our instagram,
• 21:18
  Speaker 4: our our Facebook profile, our blog, so that's fine. I
• 21:23
  Speaker 4: will say, primarily it's parents that are coming looking for
• 21:25
  Speaker 4: the resources and then they are coaching their student through.
• 21:28
  Speaker 4: Now we've got tests to help, so, but you start
• 21:31
  Speaker 4: off at the scholarshipsystem dot com and at that website
• 21:34
  Speaker 4: you'll see tons of buttons saying join the free webinar.
• 21:37
  Speaker 4: That free webinar is about an hour and ten minutes
• 21:40
  Speaker 4: hour and fifteen minutes long, where I'm going to talk
• 21:42
  Speaker 4: about in more detail those four mits. I'm also going
• 21:45
  Speaker 4: to give visuals of what the good scholarships are so
• 21:49
  Speaker 4: you can see how I use.
• 21:50
  Speaker 3: Google in a certain way. And i will tell.
• 21:52
  Speaker 4: You this is an area that AI is very limited.
• 21:55
  Speaker 4: We have actually tried building AI to automate that and
• 21:58
  Speaker 4: it is just not there yet.
• 22:00
  Speaker 3: It cannot beat our methods that we teach.
• 22:02
  Speaker 4: So you go to that webinar and if you decide
• 22:05
  Speaker 4: you want to join us, by attending that webinar, you
• 22:07
  Speaker 4: get a major discount and you can join us at
• 22:09
  Speaker 4: the end and join our course. So in our course,
• 22:12
  Speaker 4: we've got six steps laid out, it's all videos, we've
• 22:15
  Speaker 4: got worksheets, we've got a Facebook community, we have live
• 22:18
  Speaker 4: Q and a's two times a week that families can
• 22:21
  Speaker 4: jump in at any time, so it's basically free coaching
• 22:24
  Speaker 4: at any time, sorry twice a week. And then we've
• 22:28
  Speaker 4: got tests and that way tests can answer their questions
• 22:30
  Speaker 4: at any time. So we're doing everything we can to
• 22:33
  Speaker 4: keep a human component for support, keep curriculum for support,
• 22:37
  Speaker 4: and then now we've got our awesome little chat assistant
• 22:40
  Speaker 4: there to help them as well.
• 22:42
  Speaker 1: Let's talk about this, Johncelyn. The scholarship system.
• 22:45
  Speaker 2: We're talking about high school students going to college, but
• 22:49
  Speaker 2: what about the student who's in college just struggling, don't know.
• 22:53
  Speaker 1: Where to go?
• 22:54
  Speaker 3: Where I would start.
• 22:55
  Speaker 4: I'm going to give just some very quick places to go,
• 22:58
  Speaker 4: because I know that if we're in college and we
• 22:59
  Speaker 4: need money, it is urgent first and foremost. Go into
• 23:03
  Speaker 4: the financial aid department at the office. It might be
• 23:06
  Speaker 4: called the bursar's office, but whoever collects the money, and
• 23:09
  Speaker 4: ask them if they have some scholarships that they can
• 23:11
  Speaker 4: apply for. There are sometimes scholarships that freshmen incoming freshmen
• 23:16
  Speaker 4: are not considered for.
• 23:18
  Speaker 3: They have to apply once they're already there. They do
• 23:20
  Speaker 3: this on purpose.
• 23:21
  Speaker 4: They want to see are you actually going to graduate?
• 23:23
  Speaker 4: And so this is especially common. You'll see this with
• 23:27
  Speaker 4: nursing majors. They cannot get money. They start really applying
• 23:30
  Speaker 4: for scholarships through the university. Then it's hard to get
• 23:33
  Speaker 4: money through the university until they're sophomore year in college
• 23:37
  Speaker 4: because so many fail out that those first two years.
• 23:41
  Speaker 4: So that said, we want to go into the financial
• 23:43
  Speaker 4: aid office and see if there's any money we haven't
• 23:44
  Speaker 4: been already considered for. Secondly, we want to go into
• 23:47
  Speaker 4: our specific department. So I was a business student and
• 23:51
  Speaker 4: I did this. I needed that little extra amount for
• 23:54
  Speaker 4: the next following year, and so I went in and
• 23:56
  Speaker 4: they said, actually, we do have one, and we have
• 23:58
  Speaker 4: very few applicants. I said, you guys are a business school,
• 24:01
  Speaker 4: you should be good at marketing this, but I didn't mind.
• 24:05
  Speaker 4: I ended up getting eighteen hundred dollars a year the
• 24:08
  Speaker 4: remaining three years, but they did not consider incoming freshmen
• 24:11
  Speaker 4: at all. I had to go to my department and
• 24:14
  Speaker 4: ask them about money. We had another student who did
• 24:16
  Speaker 4: this after me giving the tip, and they said, well,
• 24:19
  Speaker 4: we really need help with this, so if you do that,
• 24:21
  Speaker 4: how about we give you a thousand dollars scholarship. Okay,
• 24:24
  Speaker 4: So we've actually had departments make scholarships, so speaking to
• 24:28
  Speaker 4: the bursar's office, speaking to the department, and then if
• 24:31
  Speaker 4: they are involved in any organizations looking locally.
• 24:35
  Speaker 3: State and nationally.
• 24:37
  Speaker 4: So I was in a business fraternity actually, and they
• 24:41
  Speaker 4: had a smaller local scholarship, but then they had national scholarships.
• 24:45
  Speaker 4: So also looking through any honor societies for attorneys, sororities,
• 24:50
  Speaker 4: clubs were a part of If they are part of
• 24:52
  Speaker 4: a bigger name, which usually are, oftentimes they will have
• 24:55
  Speaker 4: scholarships out there too.
• 24:56
  Speaker 2: How did you get past the fear and the planning
• 24:59
  Speaker 2: stages to be at this point where you've been interviewed
• 25:02
  Speaker 2: and a highly successful person.
• 25:04
  Speaker 1: What a business you created for yourself?
• 25:07
  Speaker 4: Well, I appreciate that, and we have. I've been full
• 25:10
  Speaker 4: time the scholarship system for a decade as of this
• 25:13
  Speaker 4: past July. And it started off with actually putting it
• 25:17
  Speaker 4: into a book. So a friend said, you know, I
• 25:20
  Speaker 4: was clearly passionate about it.
• 25:22
  Speaker 3: I was repeating myself over.
• 25:26
  Speaker 4: Imagine I was even more passionate without two kids that
• 25:28
  Speaker 4: kept me up at night. So I went ahead and
• 25:32
  Speaker 4: put it into a book.
• 25:33
  Speaker 3: And so that was supposed to be it.
• 25:35
  Speaker 4: I was still in the corporate world, and I woke
• 25:37
  Speaker 4: up an hour extra early each morning.
• 25:39
  Speaker 3: I got the book out on Amazon.
• 25:42
  Speaker 4: Luckily, a friend said to me, they said, in case
• 25:44
  Speaker 4: you ever do want to turn this into something, put
• 25:47
  Speaker 4: in something some kind of email collector. A year later,
• 25:51
  Speaker 4: I had a thousand emails from the book, and I said,
• 25:54
  Speaker 4: you know, I would really love to do this more on.
• 25:59
  Speaker 3: More intimately with families.
• 26:01
  Speaker 4: So I invited the thousand people to a webinar and
• 26:05
  Speaker 4: I said, I didn't even have the product yet. I said,
• 26:08
  Speaker 4: if I do this with you all live each week,
• 26:11
  Speaker 4: will you pay me. I got eight customers that night
• 26:14
  Speaker 4: and put in my two week notice that following Monday,
• 26:17
  Speaker 4: and that was it. Now, I will says eight customers,
• 26:23
  Speaker 4: I made like four hundred dollars or something.
• 26:25
  Speaker 3: It was not It was not sustainable. However, I will
• 26:28
  Speaker 3: say I was.
• 26:29
  Speaker 4: A very big Dave Ramsey fan. In fact, actually his
• 26:34
  Speaker 4: debt snowball is what made me so terrified of debt,
• 26:37
  Speaker 4: that made me pursue scholarships.
• 26:39
  Speaker 3: So I so I had a.
• 26:40
  Speaker 4: Six month emergency fund, so I knew I had at
• 26:42
  Speaker 4: least a six month what do they say a flight
• 26:47
  Speaker 4: line or whatever, I have a runway.
• 26:49
  Speaker 3: I have a six month runway.
• 26:51
  Speaker 4: And I from that moment I delivered the best I
• 26:54
  Speaker 4: could for those families. We got results, we got testimonials
• 26:57
  Speaker 4: from there, and then I just kept testing marketing and
• 26:59
  Speaker 4: built a small team, and I think my team is
• 27:02
  Speaker 4: the actually the reason that we are able to do
• 27:05
  Speaker 4: what we do. I will say, you said, what did
• 27:08
  Speaker 4: your friends and family say? And I will never forget
• 27:10
  Speaker 4: my boss. When I told him I'm going to start
• 27:13
  Speaker 4: my own thing, he said, oh, I remember when I
• 27:16
  Speaker 4: was young and impulsive.
• 27:17
  Speaker 3: You'll be back. I doubled my salary within a year.
• 27:22
  Speaker 1: Congratulations, I was going to get this story.
• 27:24
  Speaker 2: The truth is fear stops people, and also people can
• 27:28
  Speaker 2: stop you from pursuing your dreams. And I know I
• 27:32
  Speaker 2: left IB able to be a stand up coming, so
• 27:35
  Speaker 2: believe me, it was a whole lovel of people scratching
• 27:38
  Speaker 2: their head over that they pursuing a scholarship system of
• 27:43
  Speaker 2: helping people people.
• 27:44
  Speaker 1: You're gonna go and stay to be the next day
• 27:45
  Speaker 1: to Murphy. Yeah, yeah, yeah, I love it.
• 27:49
  Speaker 2: But I want to thank you you know again, You're
• 27:51
  Speaker 2: such a motivated, such an inspiring person.
• 27:54
  Speaker 6: Uh.
• 27:54
  Speaker 2: The scholarship system, Uh, these these they are so important
• 27:58
  Speaker 2: for students and paying understand there are options and education
• 28:02
  Speaker 2: in so many ways are available for us to pursue.
• 28:05
  Speaker 2: It's even better when we can financially afford it. Thank
• 28:09
  Speaker 2: you for coming on money Making Conversation Masterclass Jocelyn.
• 28:12
  Speaker 1: Thank you for listening to this episode.
• 28:15
  Speaker 2: No, I need for you to do me a favor
• 28:17
  Speaker 2: right now to follow our subscribe to Money Making Conversation.
• 28:21
  Speaker 2: It's free and you can find it on the iHeartRadio app, Spotify,
• 28:25
  Speaker 2: Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Please do
• 28:29
  Speaker 2: me that favor, follow or subscribe Money Making Conversations.
• 28:34
  Speaker 1: Keep winning