Secrets of a scholarship pro: a little extra work resulted in a lot of extra cash for Sarah Baker.(Paying For College)

In your search for college cash, what could be better than finding free money that never needs to be repaid?

Yet many students don't bother to look for scholarships, figuring they either 1) wouldn't qualify for any, 2) couldn't win the big ones, or 3) shouldn't waste their time applying for a small amount of money.

Sarah Baker might have thought that way, too, if it hadn't been for some nudging from her parents.

"My parents encouraged me to apply for scholarships," says Sarah, a junior at Gordon College in Wenham, Massachusetts. "My mom did a lot of research before I even started the process. The thing we learned right away is that there are a lot of scholarships out there, if you know where to look."

In fact, Sarah's mom had discovered …