Paying for College

We help you navigate creating a plan for paying for college, setting up a budget, understanding billing, financial aid, searching for scholarships and more!

Resources for you

Financial Know-How

We believe in empowering you with the knowledge to make sound financial and career decisions. We know that figuring out how to pay for college can feel stressful and overwhelming, and that everyone has unique circumstances and needs; which is why we are here to help!

We want you to be focused on your education, not stressing about how to pay for it.

We have financial management workshops and trainings for every student focused on long-term and short-term planning. You're empowered with the knowledge to make a lifetime of sound financial and career decisions.

Students working together on stairs

Paying for college resources

CAFE

The OSU Center for Advancing Financial Education (CAFE) offers one-on-one advising for developing a paying for college plan, learning about billing and costs, creating budgets, understanding your financial aid, scholarships tips, and more! CAFE also offers presentations and workshops, self- study resources, and a course dedicated to financial education.

Learn about CAFE

Scholarships

Scholarships can play a major role in funding a student’s education. The College of Business offers scholarships to incoming, first-year and transfer students. There are nearly 2,000 College of Business and OSU-wide scholarships students can be considered for each year through our Scholarship system, ScholarDollars.

Find out more

Student Jobs

Did you know students are a major part of the OSU workforce?  Working for OSU in a student position is not only a great way to earn some money to help pay for your school expenses, but the jobs can be great resume builders and provide valuable experience for the future. All of the student jobs are posted on OSU’s HR website.

Explore student jobs

Financially Smart from the start

1) If you are eligible to complete FAFSA, the Free Application for Federal Student Aid, you should fill out FAFSA every year. If you are eligible to fill out the Oregon student aid application, ORSAA, you should fill that out every year, too. Certain financial aid programs operate under a first-come, first-served basis.

2) Every OSU student should complete their ScholarDollars application, the one-stop shop for OSU and college and program scholarships. This unlocks financial opportunities that you may not have known about. The funds become available each November with a final application deadline of February 15.

3) A long-term academic plan keeps you organized and on track to your degree – or degrees. You’ll create an academic plan not just for your term, but for a longer view, too, so that you can get classes and prerequisites in the proper sequence, identify opportunities for a double major or minor or even an international study program.

4) We'll help you create a term-by-term “paying for college” plan and budget. We’ll look at tuition and fees and your food and shelter budget and make some charts and forecasts, so you’ll have a clear idea each term of what you’ll need for financial aid, scholarships and employment to stay financially secure.

5)  Canvas, the organizational software that every OSU student uses, also links you to the wide range of available financial resources available – worksheets, videos, campus programs and more. Get familiar with this great tool.