Students seeking money for college now have an alternative to scholarships and traditional financial aid, and it can found on the Internet.
Karen Kelly, a student at the Northwestern California School of Law, founded a Web site in September called StarvingStudentScholarships .org. The site provides space for students to design an advertisement requesting tuition money from sponsors.
"I couldn't find anything like it on the Internet," Kelly said. "I just did not find any other option besides the normal financial aid and the scholarship databases."
Sponsors can donate money through PayPal, a way to automatically deduct money from one's bank account online that is used mostly with the online auction house eBay.
The Web site currently has two clients, including Kelly. She has received one dollar so far, but is not informed when other clients make money. Donors have the option, through PayPal, of including a note with their donations, but do not have to identify themselves.
Students can sign up for the site by paying Kelly $1 through PayPal, $1 is the minimum amount for a PayPal purchase.
Kelly charges the fee because PayPal has a system of checking up on its customers, she said. She wants to make sure that her customers really are 18 years old and that they are not moving money to other countries illegally.
"I just wanted to make sure nobody would be laundering money through the Web site," she said.
After paying the fee, students can fill out an electronic form with the information they wish to put in the ad. This form, along with step-by-step instructions, is available on the site. The ad will include a PayPal button that donors can use to transfer money to students.
In May, Kelly received her associate's degree after 25 years of off-and-on classes, beginning when she was 21 years old. Throughout this period, she said she applied for around eight scholarships and was rejected for all but one.
"I was an honors student, so grades weren't the problem," she said. "I just don't fit the criteria for traditional scholarships."
After her scholarship rejections, Kelly was having such a difficult time paying for school that she began writing a book about how to receive financial aid. Her daughter suggested that she put some of the information on a Web site. The site initially provided this information and then evolved into its current form.
Zubair Sheikh, a senior in the Kogod School of Business, thinks that Kelly should have been capable of winning a scholarship.
"There's a lady in my class who is in her 60s, and I don't think she's paying to be here," he said. "If [Kelly] had the right grades, she should have gotten the scholarship. I don't think anyone on the Internet is going to pay her."
Kelly now takes online classes through the Northwestern California School of Law, a correspondence program that she calls "poor people's law school."
In two years she will earn a bachelor's degree, and two years later can go before the bar in California. Kelly's tuition is $2,000 each year, she said.
Tom s Ramirez, a sophomore in the School of Public Affairs, said he would be interested in creating an ad on the site.
"I think it's a great idea," Ramirez said. "I wish I had thought of that."
Kelly said students would be successful if they include their local communities in their efforts.
"I really believe that a community will help the students in the community if they know about this," she said. "As the Web site grows and develops, and students let their communities know about it," she said that people would give money to local students.
She suggested students use the sample press releases provided on the Web site by distributing them in their communities.
The site would help people who want to help students pay for college but cannot give thousands of dollars, Kelly said. "You just kind of feel dumb being that person who can only give five bucks," she said at a graduation party.
Amy Gerber, associate director of Financial Aid at AU, had no opinion on the site but said, "I think the student is creative"
