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The Federal Trade Commission started an extensive consumer education campaign as part of Project ScholarScam. The goal is educate students and their families about how to identify scholarship scams and rip-offs. Project ScholarScam includes Six Signs That Your Scholarship is Sunk, Don't Get Scammed on Your Way to College and a FTC Consumer Alert about scholarship scams.

Principals and guidance counselors who are interested in receiving a consumer education information kit should write to Federal Trade Commission, PO Box 996, Washington, DC 20580, or send email to consumerline@ftc.gov.

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FinAid also provides consumer education materials that educators, financial aid administrators, guidance counselors, principals and consumers are welcome to distribute, so long as they do not charge students for copies of the materials.

The FinAid materials include two 8.5 x 11 posters, one about Scholarship Scams (gzipped PostScript, HTML) and the other about the unclaimed aid myth and the reality of student financial aid (gzipped PostScript, HTML).

FinAid issued a press release that provides advice on evaluating scholarship services and offers. This press release lead to several other organizations issuing similar press releases:

• Debunking the Unclaimed Aid Myth (August 15, 1996)
  
• The Reality of Private-Sector Financial Aid (August 15, 1996)
• Press release from the Boston Better Business Bureau. (February 8, 1996)