Season Premiere | How to Pay for College with Jocelyn Pearson creator of The Scholarship System

This is Dr. Ossess, I'll leave it with another episode, the Way to College podcast. And, you know, I get really excited about the podcast and the opportunity to speak to people one because I love hearing stories. I love to learn about other people in their journeys. And lately I've had a lot of folks come on that I've talked about sort of what they're doing to help students navigate the college admissions process and everything is associated with that. And so I'm eager to get into my conversation with today's guests. But as always, I always ask my guests to introduce themselves and tell us a little bit about themselves before we jump into the conversation. So, Jocelyn, would you mind introducing yourself to our guests out there? Absolutely. And thank you for having me. I'm so excited to be here. So my name's Jocelyn Pearson. Founded the scholarship system now over a decade ago, which is absurd that we've been doing this for so long. It's been so fun. But it actually started off with my own experience of trying to figure out how to pay for college. So my family was in what I call the income gap where we were told, oh, you make too much money to just get handed this free ride. But there was no way they could cut a check to pay for it. I was the oldest of five kids. So they said, you know, we love you guys, but there's no way we can pay for college for you guys. So it was on us. And I was actually one of the first, actually, I only had an aunt in my whole family that ever went to college. So I had to figure it out. I had to learn, you know, how do I even do this? But I actually had a friend's mom say to me, she said, Jocelyn, if you can make a plan for scholarships, your job in high school, you can get paid for four years. Now, to most high schoolers, that sounds pretty good. Oh, wait, one year of work and four years of pay, okay, count me in. It didn't quite work out that easily. But I, you know, it was a bumpy road and I got sucked into scams. I applied to the wrong ones. I had to fine tune my process. But by the end of senior year in high school, I had enough money to pay for freshman year. By the end of freshman year, I had enough for sophomore, sophomore, junior, so and so forth. And so by the time I left college, I did get over six figures in scholarships. But I like to say that my experience was the mere mortal way of paying for college, right? As normal families that, you know, our kids are not saving the world, we're not rescuing whales out of the ocean or something. We're, you know, we're the normal people and we still need to find ways to pay for college, especially those families that are in that income gap like us, where there's no way that they can cut a check to pay for it, but they're also being told, sorry, there's not much money for you. So I also had another way to look at it. It was kind of like an entrepreneurial way of paying for college, right? Kind of getting scrappy. But then when I left college, I had friends and family asking me, they said, how did you do this? Because we are freaking out. And I started telling them, oh, easy. This is what you do. One, two, three. And next thing I know after I sounded like a broken record, this is a system. This is a repeatable system. And so while I was in the corporate world and corporate finance, I wrote the book, the scholarship system, just to be able to put that system out there to help families. Now, little did I know, turn into an entire world that we've built of helping families across the nation. They've gotten over $16.5 million to date with our proven steps. But I like to think the reason that we have such successes because we turn this overwhelming sentence of go get scholarships into, actually, let's just take one step. Let's just take another step. Let's just, so that students can just focus on, what do I need to do in front of me right now? Maybe it's just building the list. But when we tell a student, just go get money for college, that is so overwhelming. And so we break that down into something that we can just kind of give ourselves tunnel vision, give the parents tunnel vision, and do it one step at a time that ultimately does result in that end goal. So that's what we do. And it's been so fun working with this scholarship system and reaching families, but it really came for my own need of just like a lot of your listeners, having to figure out how to pay for this crazy, expensive experience that is so great when we can do it. But it's bearing a lot of families for decades to come. Joss Fund, thank you. I said, thank you for the work so far. The work that you've done to create this system because you're right, I think having navigated it myself and then helping others through it. And then working with students, and I think every year, just even reflecting on, so I no longer teach full time, but I'll still teach a couple of classes part time. And I immediately reflecting on this previous semester and the number of students that I lost over the course of the semester, because of the amount of hours they're working because they had to pay for school. And because whatever aid they were getting often wasn't enough. And so they were trying to do whatever they could to fill the gaps and whether it was helping pay for transportation or books or whatever it was. And so slowly that number began to increase in terms of the number of students I saw that I lost over the course of the semester. So one, thank you for the work that you do. I'm eager to get into this story. But one question that immediately jumps out to me, because with all of this work, I'm always fascinated by how we got to wherever it is that we're at right now. And you said you had one aunt that went to college. And before we jumped on, you said your father had earned an associate's degree. But let me ask you, when you're a young child, I'll often ask my guests about the beginning of their educational journey. And so let me reframe that a little bit. Did you always know that college was the expectation? Did you want to go to college? Or was that an expectation that was placed on you by your parents? What was that? What was that like? I agree. That is such an interesting question. I don't think I've ever been asked that question. So I will say that I really looked up to that aunt that went to college. She was, my mother had me young. And my grandmother had her old. So we were, I mean, still it was like 10 years between us or something. But it felt almost like more of a friend relationship to this date. We were still really close. So I think seeing her up and leaving the only one to do that, I thought, wow, how cool. And she went big. She went from PA all the Pennsylvania, all the way to California. So she really did it up. She ended up coming back to these coasts. But still, I think part of it was seeing her and wanting to do that. The other part was I had, I'm so grateful for the educational community, you know, people like you. I think you all know the influence that you have. I hope so. But I don't think students verbalize it enough. And one of my ninth grade teachers, she pulled me into future business leaders of America, FBLA. Ironically, I know I'm a business owner or coincidentally, I guess. But I never thought I would be. But she saw something in me and put me into pelvic speaking competitions through that. And I think that snowballed as well into, whoa, okay. I have something going for me. It took someone seeing something in me and saying, hey, I think you could be good at this. Otherwise, I'm not sure if I would have gone. My parents did not pressure me, which I'm grateful for. My parents are not ones to put much pressure on us. They let us figure it out. I think also with five kids, you have to kind of have to just say Jesus, take the wheel. They were also young parents of five kids. So yeah, I think that they kind of had to let us figure it out. We all have fortunately pursued careers and done something with that. But yes, I wouldn't say necessarily pressure, but I would say people showing me there was opportunity. And then that kind of just funneled me into that normal system where, okay, that's the plan. I'm not going to question it. The system, I'm getting funneled into the system. Tell me about your high school. What was your high school experience like? Because I think there are, because I think regardless, like even if you're funneled into the system, there are some students that I think have more opportunities. Maybe I think about myself and I think I didn't, you know, I don't remember my counselor. And I was in the top 10% of my graduating class, but I think had it not been for a teacher who maybe like that ninth grade teacher, saw potential in me and said, hey, we're going to enroll you in this test prep class or, hey, we're going to do this to help you out. I don't know what would have happened to me. And so tell me about the system that was in place at your high school. What was that like? I think my experience was similar to you. It was more teachers or advisors that were like a club advisor. That was more influential because I did go to, so I actually did ninth and tenth grade in a very low income town. To this day, it is just not a good area. 900 kids, only a handful of counselors. So you had very little support there. That's where the FBLA person was who inspired me there and seeing my aunt. However, then she was gone, right? So I saw what she did, but I didn't have her there to coach me through it. Then in 11th grade, 411th grade, we moved down south to South Carolina. Complete change of culture, as you could imagine. And it was, man, the first few months, I was like, I'm moving back, you know, typical teenager. I'm not staying down here. But within a few months, I had found my ground and fell in love with it. And now I'm this weird hybrid of Northern Southern. I don't know. It's interesting. I say y'all, but I can also be kind of direct. But down south, I do remember a counselor. However, that brought me, brought, showed me some opportunities. But I also remember a counselor and I hate to like say anything negative because I know that they would have so much responsibility. But one of the counselors I had said I was interested in biomedical engineering. And she said it would be 18 years of college. And I said, that's as long as I've been in school so far, I'm not doing that. Later I found out there are biomedical undergraduate degrees. And then you, yeah, you get your medical. So that actually had she not said that I could have been a biomedical engineer. I don't know. You know, I thought it was cool to create mechanical hearts was I remember telling everyone. So yeah. So actually that information possibly changed my entire future, the wrong information. But I did have one counselor that would show me opportunities, but I was a volunteer in the office. So I was around them. Otherwise, if I didn't take the initiative and go in there and start conversations and help out, I don't recall any standard routine meetings to discuss things or prep classes or anything like that. But really was initiative that I had to take. You thank you. Thank you for sharing that. I think I think a lot of our guests will be able to relate to that mental resonate with them. I think for a lot of our guests, primarily, they've shared similar stories where it was their experience and their road to college and higher ed was often driven by a teacher or somebody close to them. You're going through this system. And did you have your eyes set on any particular university or your college? I was following the money and that is something then. I was so I was born of the 0809 crisis, right? So I was leaving high school during that time. My father had lost his job. My parents had lost their jobs and I witnessed the consequences of debt. So I was and then I also had actually a teacher where he made us watch Financial Peace University by Dave Ramsey, Mr. Barnett. He was even at our wedding. I'm actually. So to say that they're influential is such an understatement. So they made me very risk averse and very afraid of debt. So I was from a young age actually very stubborn when it came to borrowing for student debt. And this is something that I teach with families all the time. How important that mindset is because I do think some families, they just say, well, this is what they're telling us to do. This is what everyone does. They just sign the dotted line and borrow this money. And we're not thinking that actually the average to pay back is 21 years. It's longer than your, your kid's been alive right now that they're going to be paying on this. So I was very fortunate that people in my life made me terrified of that debt. And so once my parents said, hey, we can't cover this. I said, all right, I've got to find something because I'm not going to go in debt. So for me, that I applied to some that I knew had big scholarships. But again, I was not that all sort of student. I didn't get them. I ended up going, then my site went on in state so I could get state scholarships. So I could kind of maximize all the different types of money and being in state also brought down the bill, of course, by being getting that in state tuition. So that's really how I narrowed where I went to school. Awesome. Awesome. Well, I mean, it sounds like one that teacher showing you that film proved to be pretty influential, right? And I think and good on them for showing that to you early because I think. I think every student, I think the average student, right? And he been their parents in many cases, go into this process, feeling kind of blind. Like I don't understand this. But like you said, they, they, they're telling me I need to do this and I need to sign on this top of the line. And this is just how it works. But really sort of taking advantage of their of them not knowing, right? Unfortunately. So, so tell us about what you did. Tell us about, you know, how did, because you've got the scholarship system, but tell us about what you did to help, you know, help yourself get through those four years of school because, you know, thinking about that, thinking about how am I going to pay for school? How am I paying for the next semester? I think that way on you can be incredibly taxing, overwhelming, stressful. How did you manage that? Yeah. So like I said, I did choose an in state school. So naturally, so when we're, when we're working with families, we talk about, so we've got the scholarship system, which is a system to get scholarships, right? But first, we have to try and bring that gap that we need scholarships to cover down to as little as possible. And so how can we make, find a financial fit school? So that is more affordable. That's the first step. How can we maximize government money through FAFSA? How can we get more money from the university, maybe through financial aid appeals or negotiating? Then once we get that bill down to the smallest amount, we could possibly get it to, between maybe a few schools. Now we've really got our gap figured out. Now, let me rewind a little bit. We should already be applying for scholarships before we're doing all this, by the way. So outside scholarships, I started my junior year in high school. Now, I didn't know what I was doing. There was not the scholarship system to tell me, don't apply to those. I wish that would have saved me a whole year. I was applying to what I could knock out quickly while watching Grey's Anatomy. So, you know, quick, enter to win $10,000 or write a sentence. What's your favorite flavor or ice cream and why? And I'm sure you're not surprised to hear that that email address that I use was a hotmail address, by the way. Now has tens of thousands of unread emails, because this was years and years ago, before everyone was emailing us tens of thousands of emails a day. But back then, that was absurd. And it was because they had sold my information from these, quote, unquote, scholarships, the sweepstakes scholarships, and marketed to me. And so that's what they were doing. They were just collecting students' information. They still do. So I was doing these quick and easy ones, the no essay. And as you're, I'm expecting to hear, I didn't win anything, because they're just based on luck. Then, so I waste most of my junior year in high school trying to figure this out, thinking, I'm telling my parents, yeah, I'm applying to scholarships. That's one of the hardest ones when parents are like, well, my student has applied to 30 scholarships, and they haven't won anything. And I'm like, let me see which scholarships they're applying to. And you find out, oh, they knocked out all of these in two hours. Yeah. These are not going to result in money. And I share this, by the way, I hope no one hears this as judgment, because again, remember, I did this. I've been there. I've done it. Every family I've met has done these, because they say, well, someone has to win them. In now really 15 years in this space, I've never seen a student win one of those. It is just a waste of time. So that's a junior year was spent on these scams. And then by the end of junior year, I actually found a small local scholarship, again, going into the counselor's office and saying, do you guys have anything? And they had this drawer where they would just print everything and throw it in there. So again, if you're not taking initiative, you're not going to find those. Now, I think these days, schools are better about putting them in the blackboard or the Naviance or on their website, but still I recommend walking into the high school counselor's office and saying, are there any local scholarships you've been told about? And I applied and I won $500. And you'd think, okay, $500, that's nothing. That's a few textbook season, right? But that $500 changed my life because it showed me, oh, there are legitimate scholarships out there. Oh, you can win money. Okay, wait, I had to write an essay for this. It asked about my transcripts. Okay, so I started deciphering what is a legitimate scholarship versus what is a scam? And so, and that's something that we can get into in depth. But so by the end of senior year, I did have a good chunk of the bill covered that I knew that base was covered all four years. But there was always a little bit of a gap remaining that I would need to get the rest together. But the thing was, by the end of my freshman year in college, I had a standard essay that I pretty much, I had maybe like three versions of it that I could rinse and repeat, fine tune each year. I would update it and I had my go-to professors that would review them for me. I had my go-to, you know, so I created again a system in place. So while it does sound like, oh, gosh, she had a plight each year, it actually wasn't that bad. I was able to just rinse and repeat the the winning materials. And I want to I want to clarify there, we're not rinsing and repeating something that's never won, right? If it's if it's never won anything, it's not going to start winning things. 50 applications down the road. We need a tweak. We need to improve. That's where experts come in or or a professor comes in or an English teacher. So we don't want to just keep reusing something if it hasn't won. But once we nail it, once we get that story and we can reuse, then reapplying is not that much of a burden, right? We can we've got a system in place. And that's what we find with our students. After they win that first one, man, the domino effect begins. And they get that fire like I did. They get so excited. The parents get excited. And they just keep bringing in more and more money. And also I will say, as we're once we're in college, it's sometimes in some ways easier to win because you're showing them, hey, I'm here and I'm doing it. I'm not just this is not theoretical. I am showing you I'm going to succeed in college. This is my GPA. These are the clubs I've joined. I'm managing also the clubs that were in they have scholarships once we're in college, not just locally, but sometimes on a state base, sometimes even on national base. So one club could turn into three different opportunities for money. So and then financial aid offices have money that they don't even open up to freshmen. It's only for sophomore junior seniors. So lots of opportunities we continue applying, but nailing down that system, junior year, no later than senior year fall semester, we can rinse and repeat those later years. And that's that's where yes, it sounds like a lot of work, but it takes exponentially less work once we know, once we crack it. Yeah, and I think I really can't emphasize that point enough, right? Doing that initial work, giving putting in that initial investment, because that initial investment is going to help pay off in the long run. And I think with anything getting students to see that, sometimes the students, I think, I feel like, have trouble seeing like from one day to the next year, like, no, you're putting in the work now so that, you know, this is going to pay off down the road. Now, you know, not only when you get this scholarship information and your application in, but long term, right, you're building this system, helping them understand that this is part of a system that they're investing in and that they're, they will help them throughout the long term. You're, when did you know, when did you know that I've got a system? Like, I've got something that I think can be useful to other people. Oh, that, that was in my corporate world job when someone, when someone asked me about this, and actually I had a friend writing a book at the time, and he's like, Jocelyn, just package it, put it into the book and get it out there, you know, and, and I never planned on making it into my career. Never. He said, you know, that's clearly something. And so he walked me through it as he was writing and self-publishing his own book. But it was not until after I'd gone through college that I realized it was a system. And what's funny is, in hindsight, when I was in college, they'd always make fun of me if the, if the scholarship topic came up, they'd say, Oh, no, here goes Jocelyn. So I mean, I was such a scholarship nerd. I was obsessed with it because I just got so excited because it changed my life. I was not only did I, was I able to graduate dead free. I actually was able to study abroad. I never thought as a, as a girl coming from a normal family and one that no one had gone anywhere, would I ever be able to study abroad? I mean, I was ecstatic to have the bill covered and not have to take out dead. Never mind, get enough to be able to go and experience Europe for six months. And, and it was completely covered. So yeah. And actually, I even got a little bit extra for study, I got a study abroad scholarship and that helped cover a little bit more. I would, the opportunities I had, I bought a rental property right outside of college because I still kept a part time job. That disam meant for me just if I had too much time, I just, it was like I could do nothing. But when I had constraints, I could accomplish whatever. And so I would serve or I'd be a teacher's assistant or whatever. I kept myself busy. And so I had a small savings account actually by the time I finished college rather than a bunch of debt. So that turned into a rental property and then I was able to, you know, it just snowballed. And so I was so passionate about it. And, and yeah, a friend said, put it in a book, get it out there. And, and we did him. Thank goodness. I had put something in there to say if you want the audio version, put your email address in. And, and that's how everything began. I then reached out to those emails and said, do you guys want me to walk you through this on video instead? And, yeah. And that's how it was born. How long, um, how long were you in corporate finance? I was in the corporate world. I did two, only two years of full career, but I had worked for them as an intern. And so it was three years with the company, but it was two after college. Yeah. And so you're entering with them, been going and working two years. And then this, this friend encourages you to put this, the system into a book for, for a number of people, um, they're not necessarily looking for a way out of their career. And not that true. I'd, and, and I choose my words, right? But when did you see, like, when did the, you know, putting the book out? When did you see, you know, what I can transition into this and I could probably do this full time. How soon after publishing the book, could you make that assessment? So I get, so I actually was waking up an hour early before my corporate job. And so it's funny. Our writing method that we teach in the scholarship system or three separating method is the method I used to write the book. It's what I used to write my essays as well. And I got it using that writing method. I was able to knock out a thousand words in an hour. I, I had it down. Okay. And so I would wake up an hour early. I'd give myself an extra hour and I'd write. And so I was writing the book in my corporate job with no intentions of ever leaving the corporate world. So that book was published almost a year before I even left the corporate world. So I had that book out there on Amazon for a whole year. And then I was actually in the, in the process of negotiating my post two-year program, salary and all that stuff. When I was like, let me just see if people would, would like this as a video thing. So the book was already out there and no intentions of turning it into something or escaping the corporate world. I mean, this was again over 10 years ago. So working online, that was not really a thing. Yeah. Yeah. The people who, by the way, if anyone happens to hear this, I mean, at this world, at this age, they'd be way past college years. But those people who invested in it, I got eight customers. And it was the sketchiest PayPal button on a page. There is no way today if I launched it today in that format anyone would buy. It would raise all the red flags. But it was just back then that's the only, you know, there weren't website things that were easy to do. I was trying to learn how to code sites and all this stuff. It was, it was crazy. So yeah, I laughed. I wish I could find that page and like screenshot it of, of what it looked like. But yeah. So the book, it was never with an intention of getting out of the corporate world. That wasn't my thought at all. And then a year later, I just said, you know, what would you guys do? It's like I got eight customers, put it my two week notice the following Monday. Now, I do want to say, we remember I'm very risk averse. I had six months of savings in the bank. And also I was fortunate enough to have a partner that supported me. So God forbid, if I really it crashed and burned, I did have a bag of plan, luckily never needed that. But so lots of privilege there. But yeah, I made sure I had my savings and and put in my two week notice. Well, well, congratulations. Congratulations on the success of the system and you know, all of the work that you've put into it. And just then I'd love to take advantage of, well, I've got you here. If we could maybe tackle maybe some of the misconceptions that I think a lot of folks going into this process, because I think as we're talking here, we find ourselves in the midst of college application seasons, students are starting here back from early decision, and so I'm sure there are a lot of parents out there with a lot of questions and a lot of questions about, okay, how am I going to pay for this? So maybe some, what are some of maybe some of the common myths that parents deal with as they go through this process? Yeah, such an important question, because and actually throughout my story, you'll see even I was sucked into some of these. So one of the biggest most common myths is that my student has to be a perfect student or an all-star athlete or we have to be low income in order to get any money. So it's it's amazing or or moms with sons, they're like, well, I have a boy and so he can't get any money. So we it's it's interesting how we all can rule ourselves out for some reason. Why no one would want to hear our story? Why would I win? And parents think the same. And I'm here to say that's not true. There are so many different different types of funds. There are so many different criteria. So through the scholarship to some over the last decade, we've given out nearly $40,000 in scholarships ourselves as a way to give back. And we do not even look at GPA. We don't even we do ask it in case we may need a tiebreaker somewhere. But in 10 years doing this, we have never even looked at it. We hide that criteria when selecting our winners. So so that said, there are scholarships out there. We even through universities, we found hundreds that are 3.2s as a criteria. So for those who rule other students because of scores or grades and athletics, now things are changing now. I will say that because now athletes can be paid. So it's very different world now. But before this, less than 2% of athletes got free rights. So that that whole idea that an athlete's how you get a free ride is was actually setting a lot of families up for failure there. And and then as far as, you know, being the the perfect students or or even low income, we were not we were in the middle, right? On all of these. And yet I was able to do it. So right there, it's not about being a certain student. It's about finding what your student has going for them and pursuing money in that direction. So that's one of the biggest myths. The the second myth is it's too late for us or it's too early. So I don't know where the school year is where parents say this is the time. Yeah, but it never comes. So my junior families always say, well, we've got plenty of time. We'll do it senior year, junior is crazy. And then my senior families are freaking out and they're saying, ah, like we've got so much to do. We need admissions. And now we have prom and this, you know, so and I always joke, I'm like, okay, I need you senior families to say that to my junior family is to get them moving. So for me, spring semester, junior year, if we could, that would be the best time to really start learning this. And then junior summer, if we're doing the scholarship process, we are actually making our admissions process 10 times easier because we're going to have essays we can use. And then the perk of that is fall, there are already deadlines that most seniors miss because they're focused on admissions. So naturally, those applying fall semester senior year will just have less competition. That said, I'm also here to say it's never too late. Spring semester senior year, tons of deadlines, deadlines all throughout summer through the scholarship system, our deadline isn't until mid July for money for that fall. So I literally, we choose our winners. I send checks within two weeks. So there's money all throughout summer and remember in my story, I got money each year while I was in college. My last check I cash was on the way home from college graduation. College graduation, I did not misspeak. That was from a club that I was in and I got five or six hundred bucks and it was a cash award. I got to keep the money. It was amazing. So, so we've even had families that found us when their student already left high school. And they said, you really think it's not too late. I swear to you, now they're over $25,000 that they have secured one one family specifically that comes to mind. So never too late, never too early, the criteria. I think another common myth is that it has to be all time consuming that this has to we have to sleep eat and breathe scholarships. And I'm not going to say it doesn't require work. Otherwise, everyone would have a free ride. But again, with systems in place, you can concentrate it. We have something called scholarship Sundays, two hours. Just sit down, make some popcorn. Mom and dad, you can be finding them and saving them in our free app. Your student can be writing their essays, knocking out the materials. Let's make it a date. And then that frees up the other six days of the week. So we're not nagging them. Right. So these systems, these strategies in place, they can make it a much smoother process and they can make it to where it doesn't have to take tons of time. I love that. I love that. And I appreciate that. And I'm sure, I'm sure our parents, they're listening. And my goal for our recording today is to turn around and get this out as quickly as possible because I want to get this information out into parents hands because I, well, I think, like you, I often reiterate this to parents and to students is, you sort of, like always take advantage of the time. You're never too late kind of thing, right? It was just as you said. But I think the sooner we can get this information out, obviously, the better. So thank you. You know, Justin, um, quickly, where can we find, where can we learn more about the scholarship system? Yeah. So if you go to our website, the scholarship system, we are on YouTube, Instagram, TikTok, Facebook, all the places. So if you just look up the scholarship system, I would hope we've done a good enough job that you can find us. I will say that we do have a free training on scholarships for families coming up. And so actually, if they just go to the scholarship system. .com slash way to college. So the name of this podcast, then that will set them up for that free training right there. They can register for it. And that'll get it more in depth on identifying the scams versus the legitimate scholarship, some visuals. It's just a lot easier when you can actually see which ones, like I talked about those, no essay ones. We don't want to be going after those. So we do have that free training. So again, they can go to the scholarship system.com slash way to college for that. But find us on social. Check out our website. We've got so much free information out there to help families. This is I sleep, eat and breathe this. I've been doing it for 15 years, including my own experience. I mean, I think my friends realized this was my passion well before I did when they started making fun of me. So I'm here to help in any way I can. I appreciate that. And I'll be sure to drop the link in the show notes and everything. And I think after after we after we in this conversation, feel free to send me, you know, the social media counts. And I can also make sure we tag those. You know, Jocelyn, I want to I just want to thank you. Thank you for sharing a little bit of your story. Thank you for for telling us about the genesis of this of your work and the scholarship system. But as we conclude, as we transition out of this conversation, what final piece of advice would you like to leave for our parents out there? And students. Absolutely. I want to make it juicy and tangible for scholarships. But I do just want to say before I get into that, because I want them to take this away that they can they can use it for applications. But before I say that, I just want to stress the importance not to rule yourself out of money, not to rule your student out of money. There really is money out there for everyone. It's just a matter of finding which types of money and which categories we can go for. But know that even if we just get a few thousand dollars, that can that can make a huge difference for me. It all started with a five hundred dollar scholarship. So don't look at any amount and say that's not worth our time because that even that five hundred dollar scholarship can be the fire that ignites your child or for those of you that are students listening to this go for the small ones because there are students that are saying, oh, that's not worth my time. So don't focus on those big hundred thousand dollar ones unless you are saving the whales in the planet. Go for those smaller ones because they can add up to that free ride. And then just the quick tangible tip that we did not really touch on at all is use your story. I mean, you did such a great job. Thank you for asking me about my story today. This is such a fun interview because of that. And I would say a lot of your episodes are memorable because of the speaker's story same with scholarships. So parents, if you are reviewing essays, ask yourself, are they writing this like a research paper or are they opening with a story? And it's the same thing to this day, a decade of reading scholarship applications for our own scholarship. I can tell you our winners because I remember their story. All right. So with that, I hope that's helpful for families. No, absolutely. I think that'll be incredibly helpful. And I appreciate that. I appreciate all of the advice you've given us. I appreciate the time you've taken to share your story and walk us through that. And I think because just to your final point, right, I think we connect to stories. And so for our listeners and our viewers out there, knowing that this is a system that you used throughout your journey to help you get through school to pay for school, to graduate debt free. And then that you're sort of paying it forward by sharing the system with others. Thank you. Thank you so much today. Yeah. Thanks for having me. This concludes another episode of the Way to College podcast. Thank you to our guests. Thank you to our listeners and viewers out there. Please remember to subscribe, rate, follow all of that good stuff. And do me a favor and share the podcast with one other person. I'd appreciate it. Thank you. We'll talk again soon. Bye bye.