One of the ways to pay for college that is covered in my upcoming book, “Say No! To College Debt” is someone paying school costs for you. I’m not going to rehash what I wrote in the book, but I will add a couple of new instances that I have found. It’s amazing what you will find when you read a lot and listen to good podcasts.

When I wrote about someone paying for college costs, I had the idea that it’s a rare occurrence. I guess I was wrong. Since I finished writing the book at the end of June, I stumbled upon a couple of other fairly high-profile examples.

In the June 30 issue of Forbes magazine (and also available on Forbes.com), I found a Mr. Eddie Brown, who had his tuition, room, board, and books paid for by an anonymous woman. The woman lived where Mr. Brown went to high school. If you want to read about it, the article was titled, “Oracle of Apopka”.

In addition, I caught a side comment in a recent podcast by well-known pastor and teacher Chuck Swindoll that an anonymous lady paid for most of his seminary costs (long before he was famous). I’m sure there are others out there that I haven’t run across.

So how can that happen? What a great question and I think the answer is probably that it can happen in a number of ways. The first way is to be patient. The Bible lists patience as a fruit of the Spirit. If God wasn’t patient, I shudder to think of what might have happened to me and many other people who tend to mess up a lot. Jesus was patient in many instances and God wants us to grow to be like Jesus.

Before you jump into your college career (or continue in your college career), take the time to pray and ask God if He has a provision like that for you. I would then suggest you ask around. Talk to your pastor or someone else who knows a lot of people. They may be the contact that would let someone who has money know of your need for finances to pay for college.

And then you need to wait. Financial teacher Larry Burkett used to say that God is rarely early, but He’s never late. Take God’s dependability to heart and seek what provision He has for you.