As the cost of higher education increases, parents are very anxious to find outside sources of financing.

Compare the bottom line among them and narrow it down to one or two schools.

This is one of many items that we ask parents to focus upon when they're sending the student back to school. Take a look at your insurance and make sure you're covered.

These search services -- even the legitimate ones - should be viewed as a supplement. If parents and students are willing to do the work themselves, they can find out more about grants and scholarships than any service could.

We do discourage playing one off the other.

There are a lot of students that are going to college uninsured. And for those that are insured, there is not a lot of knowledge about what scenarios can effect that coverage.

Many (of these) services are legitimate, ... But some have overzealous salespeople making promises that aren't realistic and some are outright scams.

There's a huge opportunity for Washington companies, but you can't just sit back casually and think it's going to come to you.