6 Places To Find College Scholarships and Grants
After visiting several college campuses over the summer, my son settled on his first choice of where to continue his education. He filled out his application online, and about a week later received his acceptance letter! It’s a big relief to have that settled even though he hasn’t even started his senior year of high school yet. Now that he has his acceptance letter, the real work can begin; figuring out how to pay for his college education.
Now that my son has been accepted to his college of choice, he needs to start filling out applications for scholarships and grants.
Figuring out how to get scholarships for college, or how to find educational grants can be a difficult task for both parents and students. The good news is there is a lot of free money out there just waiting for students to claim, and we plan to find as much as we can. Here’s a few places where prospective college students can find scholarships and grants:
University Admissions Office
The university my son applied to automatically evaluates each applicant for academic scholarships based upon their GPA, class ranking, ACT score, or some combination of all of them. With his acceptance letter also came notification he was awarded a $1500 academic scholarship.
Additionally, the admissions office pointed us at the university’s website which had a link to other scholarship and grant opportunities. If you are considering a specific university, make sure you ask the admissions office if they can help point prospective students in the right direction to get scholarships for college.
Career Major Department
My son is planning on majoring in computer engineering. A phone call to the office of that specific department revealed that they offer engineering and technology related scholarships and grants. Many of them are only open to students in their second year and beyond, but it is definitely a resource to check out and utilize throughout his college career.
Insurance Companies
The insurance company we use for our life insurance policies has scholarship and grants available to customers at a local level. This means that each local office has scholarship and grants to give out. This increases the chance of being awarded one over competing at a national level for a handful of opportunities.
Financial Institutions
My bank puts a sign right inside the doorway every fall directing customers to inquire about scholarship and grant opportunities. This is the year I finally ask a teller for additional information.
High School Counselor
Local organizations will contact the high schools directly with information regarding scholarships and how to find educational grants. By visiting his high school counselor frequently, my son can get applications for the wealth of opportunities known by his high school.
Employer
My employer also offers scholarship and grants open to employees as well as their children. I work for a very large corporation, so these opportunities are at a national level, but it never hurts to try!
As a bonus, a 7th way is the college scholarship from PaperWritingHelp.net – you could win $1000 in their essay writing contest!
By investigating the above, we uncovered a wealth of information regarding how to get scholarships for college and how to find educational grants. This information will keep my son busy for awhile, but we’re just getting rolling. We’ll continue to look around and see what else we can find. I’ll report back in a few months with any additional opportunities that we’ve found!
Do you have any other suggestions where someone could look for scholarship or grant opportunities?
Brought to you courtesy of Brock
Brock is a software engineer by day and personal finance blogger at night. He is a fitness junkie and enjoys grilling and smoking meat. Married with two children, Brock strives to improve his skills as a husband and father, and is always on the lookout to stretch his family’s budget as far as he can.
Very good point about competing more at the regional level for scholarships than at the national level – your odds are so much better! And for smaller scholarships, there are actually some that no one even applies to – so if you just apply, you could win automatically, no joke! So it’s always worth a try.
One small scholarship I got in college was actually a blogging scholarship! So try searching online for any activities or hobbies you have (plus the word “scholarship”) to see what comes up. You never know – seems like there’s a scholarship for everything these days!
Congrats on the acceptance and the already flowing scholarships!
My .02: check out department and college level scholarships within the university. Sometimes the word doesn’t get out about these to a huge crowd because the scholarship coordinator for the department is flooded with other duties (teaching, research, etc.) Ask around the department office at the beginning of the spring semester. There may be scholarships specifically for students of your major at your university, handled not by the central scholarship office but instead by smaller offices per major or program of study; some are for the beginning of your studies (freshmen, sophomore) and others for when you are completing more major-specific, advanced coursework (junior, senior).
Tons of scholarships available through a variety of organizations. Does your son volunteer? If so, he may have some opportunities through the cause he volunteers with. Does he have a part time job? Lots of employers have scholarships for their high school aged employees. Hobbies? He can check with companies that market to his hobbies or organizations that support them.
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In addition to the aid the institution gives understudies, many monetary guide workplaces have databases of outside grants. A few grants will be national grants open to all understudies while others will be just open to understudies at your college.