With a poor economy, how students pay for college becomes critical. But if students are looking for scholarships at NIU, they might be out of luck.

“Here at NIU, Feb. 1 is a very common time for scholarships to be due,” said scholarship coordinator Dana Gautcher.

Gautcher said some departments do offer scholarships with due dates beyond Feb. 1, but students should expand their search beyond NIU.

“We would also encourage students to look at as many resources as possible,” Gautcher said. “Not just NIU.”

Looking beyond NIU is the strategy Nicole Ayabarreno, freshman business administration major, is pursuing. One of the Web sites she uses is FastWeb, a free online search engine geared toward scholarships and internships.

Ayabarreno began using FastWeb frequently after she realized she began too late to look for scholarships at NIU.

“I go on FastWeb and put in my whole profile, and it has given me tons and tons of scholarships,” Ayabarreno said.

Rebecca Viirre, freshman pre-physical therapy major, was more prepared. In addition to applying for NIU scholarships, Viirre also joined the National Society of Collegiate Scholars, an academic honors society for college students.

“I’ve been getting a lot of stuff from them,” Viirre said.

Both Viirre and Ayabarreno cited the economy as the reason for their aggressive hunt for scholarships. Ayabarreno said she does not want to become laden with debt, and every little bit counts.

However, the current economic downturn is not flooding the scholarship office with waves of applications. Gautcher said the office has received the same rate of application return as years previous.

“It could change, but a lot of that remains to be seen,” Gautcher said.

Jordan Lints, junior general studies major, is not hunting for scholarships. She described her financial status as being “too rich for scholarships but too poor to go to school.”

But another key factor was information. Lints said she was aware of scholarship search engines, but she wasn’t sure which ones were legitimate.

Gautcher said while many of the search engines can help students, they should stay away from

ones that request money upfront or a student’s personal information, such as Social Security numbers and bank accounts.