I recently blogged about a great scholarship fundraising program. As it turns out, Arkansas isn’t the only state doing a scholarship fundraising lottery. Not only that, they’re not even the most successful. The Tennessee Education Lottery earned $280.2 million for education in the 2009 fiscal year–boasting sales of over $1 billion for the third year in a row.

This kind of financial aid innovation is extremely important in today’s economic climate. In California, students are taking to the streets to protest fee increases. Scholarships and grants are drying up, and loans of all kinds, including student loans, are harder to come by. If you’re considering going back to school, it’s time to put on your thinking cap. Figuring out how to creatively fund your college education can make your dreams of university come true.

Payin’ the Bills

The financial aid mainstays are scholarships, grants, student loans, and savings plans like the 529. These traditional methods for funding an education don’t always make ends meet, though. Many students are fortunate enough to find work related to their studies, but, unfortunately, many more are not. A nice perk of on-campus jobs is that they usually come with money-saving discounts on credits. Whatever type of employment a student ends up finding, it can be very taxing on an education.

Personally, my scholarships didn’t quite cover everything, so I worked nights and weekends in food service. Several of my fellow servers were also attending college. There were rumblings more than a few times about needing to get home to study or write a paper. These issues are not uncommon. Thanks to the fact that college students are usually pretty intelligent–and pretty broke–some creative ways to meet costs have surfaced.

Putting the ‘Fun’ in College Funding

One idea that tickles me (despite how practical it really is) is a lot like selling futures. As a college student, you’re probably planning on making it big. Sites like MyRichUncle.com make it easy for you to seek out a sponsor. If you do manage to get a “rich uncle”, you’ll be paying this loan back with a percentage of your post-graduation earnings. Other creative ways to handle your expenses range from no-nos like starting a paper-writing service to seeking out loan-forgiveness community service programs. There are also plenty of tricky ways to save money, which will help your limited budget stretch that much further.

Whatever you do, make sure that money doesn’t quash your dreams. There’s plenty of funding out there, if you’re creative enough to find it.