A while back we reported on an Akron, Ohio ballot initiative that would privatize the sewage system and use the revenue from the sale to finance scholarships. Unfortunately, the measure was defeated yesterday as fears of utility increases moved against the idea of sewer scholarships. Well, there's always the trash department.

With Halloween behind us, it's now time to turn to Thanksgiving since we've been getting ready for Christmas since September. And what better way to celebrate than to win a $15,000 scholarship? The Culinary Institute of America is running the Top Turkey Scholarship Contest to win a scholarship to CIA. Provide written recipe of your leftovers dish, a personal statement, and three photos of your culinary creation. You can also place your dish on YouTube for the world to see. The deadline to enter is November 7th, so go to the website for more info on how to enter.

We recently posted an entry asking if anyone has lost any scholarships due to the financial crisis. It turns out that some scholarships awards have been canceled or reduced to lesser amounts. Here are a few of comments we received from students:

Trisha, Hunter College in New York City:

"Funding for my Vallone scholarship decreased! now instead of receiving $1000 ($500 a semester), I will only receive $500 ($250 a semester)! I now have a stop on my account saying that I owe the school $250 due to the decrease in my scholarship...my parents have two children in college and this is adding to the financial burden. I am pretty sure I will be forced to take out loans due to the decrease in scholarship funding."

Kim:

"I have not lost any of my scholarships yet, but the one that I just received has been lowered from $1250 to $1000 which makes things harder since I am in a private (and expensive) college and have to pay for it on my own. My family also has many more expenses to worry about so this does not help any of us."

Kathleen, Santa Rosa Junior College:

"The college has to stop giving out their Doyle Scholarships for the next school year. I will lose $1400 in the scholarship next year."

I'm sorry to hear that this happening to so many people who need these scholarships. I encourage those of you in similar situations to use FastWeb to find scholarships and fill the gap. Remember, you can apply for scholarships throughout college. I'll also post our Scholarship Bootcamp Widget: we're giving away $1,000 each week for answering our Bootcamp question of the day. Keep us posted of any other troubles you may be having in the financial aid world  and we'll cover it in a future post here or on FastWeb Fiduciary.