College scholarships are a wonderful option when paying for college. Unlike loans, you do not have to repay the money from college scholarships. Every year colleges award their students tens of thousands of dollars in student scholarships.
If you or your child is preparing to enter college, it makes sense to spend time finding scholarships to reduce the amount of money you will pay.
1. Academic scholarships are an option for those with excellent grades. In addition to outside scholarships, many colleges offer full tuition scholarships to a limited number of students who have a high level of academic achievement.
2. When people think of athletic scholarships, they often think of basketball and football, but colleges offer athletic scholarships for all varsity sports, and many of the smaller colleges do not expect you to be a world-class athlete to receive one of these scholarships.
3. For the student who is neither an academic or athletic all-star, there are many other options, including scholarships for community service, artistic interests or related to the field of study.
Action Steps
The best contacts and resources to help you get it done
Cast a wide net when looking for scholarships for college
Completing a scholarship application is not time consuming. Compile a list of scholarships that you qualify for, sit down and begin the application process. Winning scholarship money is like a sales job, a numbers game. As long as you complete the application correctly and apply for scholarships that you are qualified for, you will increase your chances by applying for more scholarships.
I recommend: Search engines like
FastWeb and
NextStudent allow you to search for student scholarships by major, qualifications and other filters.
Prepare to take advantage of all scholarship opportunities
Every year, organizations have scholarships that they do not award because no one applies for them. It is easy to assume that the top graduates in each class receive all of the scholarships, but this is not true. While you should apply for smaller, locally oriented scholarships, invest the time in scholarships that offer a large award as well.
I recommend: Perfect your scholarship application before putting it into the mail.
JustColleges has an excellent article on preparing the scholarship application. If your application includes an essay, consider having it reviewed by an editor, like those available at
GradeSaver. If this is not possible, have a parent or friend review the essay before sending it out. A second set of eyes often catches mistakes and typos that you may have missed.
Ask about special graduate school scholarships
If you have your heart set on a particular college, call or email to set up an appointment with the financial counselor. For graduate scholarships in particular, it can be difficult to find all of the available resources.
I recommend: Both
The Princeton Review and
FindTuition.com have graduate school scholarship searches. However do not limit yourself to those options. After a graduate program accepts you, make arrangements to speak with the financial counselor at that school and inquire about potential grant and fellowship opportunities.
Tips & Tactics
Helpful advice for making the most of this Guide
- Scholarships for college may be taxable; consult a tax adviser to find out.
- Fee based scholarship services may save some time, but they do not use different databases than the ones you can access on the Internet.
- If you have difficulty locating graduate scholarships because you are returning to school part-time, ask your employer about tuition reimbursement plans.
The official source of Scholarships is the Scholarships page at Business.com
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