My co-worker Charles Slat has a story for The Monroe Evening News and blog post at Behind the Headlines about a preparation class that local high school students were invited to Saturday to prepare for the Michigan Merit Scholarship.

“A lot of people still might not have gotten the message that the state makes available a $4,000 scholarship to students who do halfway decent on the Michigan Merit Exam,” Charles wrote on the blog.

I’ve got a college financing sidebar that has links to that scholarship program and lots of other  useful resources for southeast Michigan students.

Now, to bring up an important point: the MME scholarship is not available in all circumstances.

My daughter, who attends college out-of-state, is not eligible for those funds. We had to weigh that situation carefully against what other college financing she was able to line up. It was a lot of work on our part to arrange for the scholarships, work-study and grants she did get, and both my daughter and I had to sign loans for the difference.

I kept crossing my fingers that it would all work out.

The reality is, for a lot of Monroe County students, the low tuition rates for county residents at Monroe County Community College in combination with the MME program is the most cost-effective way to get a college education – or at least get started on one.

Keep in mind that MCCC and its sponsors also have a list of locally funded scholarships that can help you stretch your funds even further. Other scholarships are sponsored by the area high schools and private foundations. Even if you go to MCCC, you want to apply for as many of those local scholarships as possible, because tuition is only part of college expenses.

Textbooks in particular run about $1,000 a year for a full-time student, even at MCCC. There’s no good way around that situation, because used books aren’t available for every course.

And you have to consider the commuting expenses from home to campus. But Lake Erie Transit gives a discount on monthly bus passes to MCCC students.

Bottom line – don’t give up on seeking a college degree until you have sought out all the financing options.