Whether you are a high school graduate looking to get into a college, or thinking about going back to school for advanced degree, a simple college search by major is usually the easiest way to start. I recently helped my nephew apply for college. In researching different colleges, universities, the degree programs they offered, and available scholarships, I came across this web site called FreeEducationGuide.com. It’s a free site that allows you to find colleges by major and degree programs all from one central location. It’s a great time saver so I thought I would write a review on this site. If you are looking for school information or grants and scholarships for college, this would be a convenient place to start.
Here is a screen shot when you first go to FreeEducationGuide.com. You would enter your basic information on the right and click “Get Your Guide!”. By entering the information here, you will be able to do multiple searches without having to re-entering the information with each search. Also, as you will see below, when you request admission kits or financial aid information from the schools that interest you, your contact information will be pre-filled so you don’t need to fill out each school’s contact form individually — this is usually the most tedious and time-consuming process. So make sure you provide accurate information here or you will not receive the package from the schools.
Once you click “Get Your Guide!”, you will see the detailed school information including the degree programs, available grants or scholarships, etc. The school is displayed based on the major you selected. If this is the college that interests you, simply click “Continue to Request Info!” button and your request will get sent to that college. A information/admission kit will then be mailed to you directly from the college.
If the college displayed does not interest you, just click “Skip this school and try other options” link at the top right corner and the next school based on your major will be displayed. You can repeat the process and search/request information from as many school as you want.
To change the major, just use the drop-down menu to select a new one as shown below.
The schools in the directory are from both traditional brick-and-mortar and online colleges and universities. If you do a college search in the old fashion way, you would go to each college’s web site, then look around to find the admission and financial pages. There are also different departments, degree programs you need to poke around. Then, if you decide to request information, you need to fill out the online form of all your contact information. You may need to finish questionnaires if the school requires one. And the worst part is, you have to go through the entire process again for another school. The research could take days or even weeks. With FreeEducationGuide.com, I was able to finish the entire research in 2 hours.
The only thing I couldn’t get it to work was to create an online account. For some reason it kept on telling me I entered an invalid username/password. So if I log out of the web site, I would have to re-enter my contact information again when I re-visit the site.
There is always a privacy concern when you give out your email address or phone numbers over the Internet. So far I have not received a single email or phone call from Free Education Guide. The only emails I got were from the colleges that I requested information from, which is to be expected.
Now, every time I see a free web site like this, I always want to know why it is free. ALL web sites on the Internet (yes, including this one), unless they are from government or charity, exist for one reason and one reason only — to bring in revenue to the companies that own them. Typically a free information site would have ads running to generate revenue much like free public TVs (look at the sidebar to the right and you will see ads on this web site). I don’t see any ads on Free Education Guide so I am assuming they get paid by the colleges and universities in their directory.
Because of the economy, public colleges are suffering from local and state budget cuts. Private schools are facing the same funding difficulties. They are now stepping up on advertising campaigns to increase the enrollment numbers. You have long seen them advertising on TV, radio, and billboards. I wouldn’t be surprised if they pay to get listed in the directory. Or they could pay Free Education Guide on a per-lead basis. In other words, the school pays Free Education Guide a fee once you send your request for more information.
In summary, I found FreeEducationGuide.com to be a great time-saver to search for college programs. If you are looking for college information, it’s worth check it out.
