The first step in the "College Funding Cycle" always should be the search for "Free Money." To aid in that search, NextStudent, the Phoenix-based premier education funding company, has launched a new Scholarship Search Directory that houses information on 2.4 million individual awards from 42,000 different sources that total $3.4 billion in funds. Students and parents can access this directory at: NextStudent's website.

The new Scholarship Search directory is the ultimate scholarship source listed by category. Awards are broken down first by broad categories, including artistic skill, athletic skill, ethnic background and corporate employer, down to more specific categories including foreign language, rodeo and Irish ancestry. In three simple clicks, students and parents can gain mountains of information on specific scholarships for which they may be eligible to apply and find unusual scholarships they didn't even know existed.

NextStudent's Scholarship Search Directory: Simple-to-Understand Listings

Once students "click through" to categories that apply to them and find scholarships for which they are interested, the listings themselves are clear and easy to understand. Each entry lists not only the title of the scholarship and general information but also the aid type, the number of awards given, the maximum value of the awards, the due date, and a link to the scholarship's Web site where more information can be found.

NextStudent Scholarship Search Engine

This new Scholarship directory is in addition to NextStudent's popular and helpful Scholarship Search Engine, located at: http://www.nextstudent.com/scholarship_search/scholarship_search.asp. This application allows students to search for keywords they already have identified as being scholarship-worthy. To best utilize this resource, NextStudent suggests that students and parents compose a resume that lists the student's involvement in high school programs and activities including clubs, sports, and organizations such as National Honor Society, or other extracurricular activities such as volunteer work or religious affiliations.

The federal government began accepting financial aid applications as of Jan. 1, 2007 for the following school year. Many students discontinued their search for free money as they buckled down to complete their FAFSA and submit their college applications. However, federal financial aid doesn't always cover the cost of college and must be subsidized with student loans or free money, making the scholarship search an integral part of the college funding cycle. Students and parents continually should look for updates and new sources of funding through tools such as NextStudent's Scholarship Search Directory and NextStudent's Scholarship Search Engine to help ensure that they can fund their dream of a higher education.

NextStudent believes that getting an education is the best investment you can make, and it is dedicated to helping you pursue your education dreams by making college funding simple. Learn more about student loans and student loan consolidation at NextStudent.com.