Students and parents looking for ways to pay for school are scammed for over 100 million dollars every year. Many of these financial aid scams put on faces that look legitimate, but the people running them take people`s hard-earned money and never give a dime to help with their educational needs.

One of the avenues through which scam artists trick college bound students is via scholarship scams. The most common way people are scammed is through fee-based scholarship applications. Know that if an organization wants to give a scholarship, it will not ask the recipient to pay any money in exchange. Scholarships and grants are free money, there is no payment needed. Some scholarship scams collect money and run with it, while others collect a large amount of money and then give back only a small portion of the proceeds. Both of these tactics are illegal, and both are something to watch out for. Even such organizations that offer to match students with scholarships for a fee are not legitimate.

Another common financial aid scam is called advanced-fee loan marketing. Scam artists will place an advertisement out there saying they offer an unusually low interest rate on school loans. What these ads don't say up-front is that there is an application fee or a certain amount of `down payment` that students must fork over to guarantee the loan. These are all bogus ways for people to scam hard-working individuals who just want a way to pay for school.

The best tip that will help keep you from being a victim of these kinds of scams is: Don`t ever pay any money to get money for school.