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Four Myths About Financial Aid: Busted!

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Too many students and their families have pre-conceived notions about receiving financial aid, thinking that their income is either too high or too low. A strategic approach can mean real savings. So much depends on the particular colleges to which students apply, and even the fields they intend to study. Many universities are now offering recruitment incentives with additional financial aid to anyone who wants to pursue studies in Sciences, Technology, Engineering and Math--STEM majors include robotics, computer programming, criminal forensics and a wide array of fields and specializations.  Depending upon the school and other factors, there may also be sources of free money for college such as endowments for specific majors in the arts.  Many students and their families are pleasantly  surprised to learn how much aid they are actually eligible or qualified to receive. Red Kite, integrated within the GATE College System platform, makes sure students are on-track with
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"Show Me the Money!" It's All About Demographics

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An important fact that many students, parents, counselors and teachers fail to understand is the critical role individual demographics play in  eligibility for free money for college.  Since there are tens of thousands of different scholarships, grants, fellowships and institutional forms of aid out there for US college-bound teens to navigate, the odds have been slim indeed that they would identify, locate, apply for and receive these free monies to offset tuition costs. That is, until now. Leveraging Red Kite's smart algorithms within the GATE College System platform, students can now quickly and easily know who has free cash ready to allocate to support their college studies on the basis of many relevant factors assessed in those determinations. Some funds, for example, are exclusively interested in funding incoming freshman Latina students who have one or more parents with a military background and who are interested in majoring in engineering. Scholarships exist for left-
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$11.2M in Matching Aid for a Single Student: Here's How

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GATE's financial aid support in tandem with Red Kite helps students find how much free money for college? Glad you asked. In considering a single student example, above, on the basis of demographic descriptors captured within the GATE College System solution, this is a typical example of a student who's begun working with Red Kite's astonishing aid-match technology. In fact, Red Kite executive team members confirm that in total this platform offers over $20 Billion in financial aid opportunities, both scholarship and loan-based.  Best of all, it breaks down the COA (cost of attendance) and collates all available monies for each of the several schools the student is considering--in this case U of Arkansas, Austin Community College and Saint Edward's U. When the student and his or her parents see in easy-to-understand charts and graphs the gap between costs and what is needed to attend, informed decisions become much easier. In fact, research shows that
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Student View of My Red Kite Dashboard for Target Colleges

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The truth about financial aid is that the process is often mysterious, confusing and stress-inducing for over 90% of families in America needing monetary support in order for their teenagers to aspire to, apply for, and afford paying for college. Tuition and fees are notoriously pricey, and not knowing how to navigate the labyrinth results in millions of dollars every year of unclaimed aid across the US. That is, right when students need a transparent process to apply and identify their strategy for covering the gap between need and cost of attendance, it can feel overwhelmingly complex. That's where GATE College System's Red Kite support comes in. The reason for these complexities is as simple as it is predicable: federal and state government agencies, as well as colleges and private lending institutions, all operate in such a way as to save and accrue as much money as possible for their own strategic purposes. Since the financial aid industry is one of the largest and
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Sneak Peek at Red Kite's Student Dashboard

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Check out this image from inside GATE College System's Red Kite access. When a student logs on to Red Kite through the GATE College System platform, the technology automatically pulls demographic data about that individual in order to begin the matching process. It identifies a personalized list of all matching aid for which the student is eligible. Connecting each teen to billions of dollars in available scholarship aid, the platform revolutionizes the way high schoolers access tuition-support opportunities for themselves.  For example, a scholarship might be earmarked only for Latina students. A student matching that descriptor would see a list of all potential matches, and can then "bookmark" those of interest for followup. She would complete the prescribes "To-Do List" accompanying each within the platform, and apply directly from her dashboard.   API s tands for "Application Programming Interface." Our API's commands, functions and pro
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Red Kite: Scholarship Search Goes Digital Inside GATE College System Platform for High School Students Concerned About Affording College Greetings, and welcome to the Financial Aid Goes Digital Blog. Did you know that the needs of America's 15.8 million high school students are being supported in a game-changing way thanks to digital technology? With US student debt topping $1.5 trillion, ensuring students and their parents can easily understand and access scholarships to help pay for college is critical now more than ever. By leveraging such resources, leveling the playing field even for socioeconomically disadvantaged students comes within reach. Red Kite, as integrated in the GATE College System platform, is the new technology leading the way. [Positionality acknowledgement: I am CEO of GATE, which is presently in active strategic partnership with this company.] The opportunities opened by this technology revolutionizes the way students with diverse interests and backgr
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