If you've got a child headed to college, or even a year out, you know the costs.
One study shows on average, families spent more than $26,000 for college expenses over the last school year.
To break it down, 43% of that total came from savings and income and 31% came from scholarships and grants.
Charlotte Faulkner would like to see those numbers reversed. She's a mom on a mission trying to find free money for her daughter as she heads to college.
First step: filling out a FAFSA form.
It's necessary to see if your child qualifies for any federal money through grants, low-interest loans or work-study programs.
Then there's the scholarship hunt.
Charlotte says "we've applied for 20 scholarships since we stated this back in September."
There are plenty of online sites to help find scholarships that fit.
They include Scholarships.com, Cappex, Scholarship Owl, Fastweb.com and Collegeboard.org.
Most sites allow you to personalize your search, putting in your grades, interests and where you want to attend. A lot of possibilities appear.
You can click apply on those that have the best fit and Charlotte found some can be very specialized.
"There are scholarships out there for equestrian riders, aquatics. There's a scholarship out there if you want to do beetle bug research or be a beetle bug person," she says.
But be careful in your money search.
Charlotte also found sites that wanted to charge a fee for their service.
You should not have to pay to file a FAFSA form or to find a scholarship.
Click here for more ways to find scholarship money for college.
