Colleges

Call it the $3 billion dollar question: Why, asks Daniel J. Cassidy, does that much financial aid from the private sector go unclaimed every year?

Mr. Cassidy, the president of the Santa Rosa, Calif.-based National Scholarship Research Service, recently published the fifth edition of his handbook for students and families, The Scholarship Book . The book offers information on more than 1,200 college scholarships from the private sector, with amounts ranging from $100 to $20,000.

One reason students overlook scholarship opportunities, Mr. Cassidy said in a recent interview, is that they look at the federal student-aid application and automatically assume they won't qualify for assistance. "Right away they think, 'I'm not eligible because my parents...