Hi Jeff! Let me start out by congratulating you for making the wise decision of attending college, and better yet, for planning well ahead of time. The skills you have developed in high school will surely help you succeed in college and in life.
*Follow these steps and you'll be in good shape. You should begin planning for college now (it's never too early). Make sure you write down your findings in a journal, or Word document.
1) First of all, you should determine what you would like to study. Are you interested in becoming a business man? An engineer? An educator? It's okay if you're not completely sure. Just think of all the possibilities and limit your selection down to a few (say, 3).
2) Now that you have an idea of what you want to study, it's time to find a school. Some schools are very well-known for certain programs, which gives their graduates an advantage over graduates from other colleges. In other words, if you graduate from a "top" engineering school, you will have a better chance of attaining a well-paying engineering job with good benefits after graduation.
You can perform Google searches for "Top Business Schools", "Top Engineering Schools", etc. until you find a few that you're interested in. Make sure you analyze each of the colleges' requirements carefully (minimum GPA, etc.) and also take note of the expenses (tuition, room and board, books, and other fees). You can usually find all the info you need on the college websites.
3) Now it's time to consider your financial aid options (e.g. scholarships, grants, loans, work study). Although most scholarships are aimed at high school seniors, there are plenty of scholarship programs open to juniors as well. All it takes is a bit of research. You should begin searching for financial aid ASAP. Two websites that I personally used to find financial aid are collegeboard.com and fastweb.com. These are scholarship databases that contain thousands of scholarships, and you can quickly and easily filter the results to find scholarships that apply to you.
Of course, you should also apply for federal student aid. Visit
http://www.fafsa.ed.gov/ and fill out the Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FILL OUT AND SUBMIT ON JANUARY 2012, since that's the year you're graduating and moving on to college I assume).
P.S. Visit
http://unlvsigmas.com/college_careers.html where you'll find further information about financial aid. You'll see that I've already done much of the research for you. :) Let's make sure you don't have to spend a single dime of your own money for college. Feel free to contact me if ever you need more advice.
Wishing you much success,
JB