My daughter is going off to school next year, and we need all the help we can get! Tips appreciated.

I learned a really helpful tip in a seminar. The speaker said that if you get accepted to your first-choice college but get a better financial offer from one of your other choices, you should use the other offer to try to get more money from your first choice. He told us to write a letter to our first choice, include a copy of the financial offer from the other school, and explain that you would prefer to go to the school you are writing to but would like them to match the financial offer from the other school. He told us that 95 percent of the time the school you want to attend will give you the extra money.

There are lots of little-known scholarships out there if you know where to look, but sometimes you have to position yourself to take advantage of them. Get your grandfather or parents to join organizations like the American Legion, which have scholarships for the grandchildren and children of members. An American Legion member told me that they average less than five applicants a year for a scholarship for Eagle Scouts who are children and grandchildren of active, dues-paying members.

One of the best programs out there is the PLUS loan. It is a loan for parents, not students, with a relatively low interest rate. The loan is a good way to get your child started if you don’t have the funds to do it. We opted to use a PLUS loan for the first year and the following years were paid for by cashing out equity in our home.

A lot of small, private schools offer merit-based scholarships to good students, which helps defray tuition costs. Don’t be afraid to ask about that, and then be proactive! Once we started getting scholarship offers, we went back and asked if they could be increased at all. We weren’t shy about asking for more and the schools often came back with it. Some people might think what they offer is all you can get. But if that school really wants your child to come there, they’ll do what they can to get him.