Scholarships can help you pay for college without the distractions of loans or a job.
College is expensive. It's also a gateway to future wealth and opportunity. Unfortunately, many people have the desire to go to college, the brainpower and study skills to succeed, but don't have enough money to pay their way. Some students grapple with this by working a job while in college. Others take on student loans. But the first and easiest way to pay for college is to apply for scholarships. If you can win scholarships, they can cover a large part of your expenses and give you the peace of mind to focus on your studies and lifestyle.
Government Scholarships
The U.S. Department of Education maintains an Office of Federal Student Aid (FSA), which runs a massive financial aid program for college students. In 2010, FSA distributed over $31 billion in grants to students, including more than $29 billion from the Pell Grant program. The federal government awards grants on the basis of financial need. Look into their website at studentaid.eg.gov to see whether you meet their eligibility requirements.
Scholarships Suited to Your Interests, Strengths and Means
It makes sense to consider scholarships that relate to you. For example, if you want to go to college to study journalism, look into scholarships for journalism. Scholarship websites like Fastweb make it easy for you to search for scholarships by topic. Private scholarships are awarded for many things, including extracurricular activities, areas of academic interest, good grades, family background, cultural background and financial need. By applying for scholarships that relate to you, you can be a more competitive candidate.
Scholarships at Your College
Most universities and colleges run their own financial aid program and provide scholarships to students, usually on the basis of financial need, and sometimes on the basis of academic merit or other factors. Check with your college's office of student financial aid.
Big-Dollar Scholarships
One thing about scholarships is that they tend to be smaller than your total college expenses. Thus, depending on how much grant money you need, you will probably have to apply for several distinct scholarships. To reduce this workload, look for scholarships that offer larger award values. For example, a scholarship for $250 is helpful, but you'd need six of them to equal one $1500 scholarship, and you would have to do the paperwork and any essay questions for each of them. It may help for you to write a budget of your total anticipated costs for college, and use this to guide your decision on which scholarships to apply for.
Less Competitive Scholarships
You may have heard that billions of dollars of scholarship money goes unclaimed each year. There are no formal statistics tracking this, but it is true that each year many scholarships do go unclaimed. This can be due to low publicity or lack of qualified applicants. If you're in heavy need of scholarships, look for ones like these that will attract fewer competitors. The basic idea here is that, with fewer people competing for a scholarship, you will be more likely to win it. Some websites, like unclaimedscholarships.us, attempt to track unclaimed scholarships. Also, ask around your community to see if there are any scholarships close-at-hand.
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