Financial Aid News and Information

The Insider's Guide to Scholarships

Worried parents and students, take note: There's plenty of college money to be had. Here's how to know when to apply and the best places to look first.

- by Liz Pulliam Weston

You've probably heard, many times, that a gazillion dollars in scholarship money goes unclaimed every year.

There's a good reason for that.

Some scholarships are so specific, so restricted, so oddball, that few people ever qualify. The scholarship's sponsors might be looking for left-handed lacrosse players from Louisiana, for example. Right-handers need not apply.

At the other end of the scale are scholarships so insanely competitive they might as well be lotteries. Coca-Cola has about 250 scholarships that each year attract more than 100,000 applicants.

Even if you could qualify for many scholarships, the potential reward may not be worth the effort. Many payouts are low -- $100 to $500, which might not pay for a semester's worth of books or beer -- and the amount of work required to apply is often substantial.

What's more, colleges often deduct any money won in scholarships from a student's financial aid package, meaning you're essentially doing all that work for little or no net financial reward.

6 reasons to apply for scholarships

So should you give up on scholarships altogether? Not necessarily. Here's when it makes sense to apply:

Your family won't qualify for much, if any, financial aid.
In this case, scholarships are money that can really help reduce the cost of college.

Your college of choice tends to offer loans, rather than grants .
"Free" money is always better than money you have to repay. Call and ask about the college's typical loans-to-grants ratio, and make sure any scholarship money would be deducted from the loan side.

Your college doesn't completely fill your financial aid needs.
Some colleges' financial aid packages meet only part of the student's financial need. If yours allows such gaps, then typically scholarships are allowed to supply some of the missing money without reducing your overall aid package.

The effort required on your part is minimal.
Some employers or unions hand out money to workers' kids without requiring much more than a one-page application. Boeing, for example, automatically gives $1,500 to any worker's child who scores high enough on the PSATs to become a National Merit Scholar. You might as well grab the cash. In addition, many universities use their own merit scholarships as a way to discount tuition for students they really want to attract. You can't apply for these scholarships, but they can be a valuable part of a student loan package.

You haven't got much competition.
Small, local organizations -- churches, temples, mosques, service clubs -- may offer money each year with few takers, or at least none as brilliant as your entrant.

The scholarship would look really, really good on a resume -- and you don't mind competing for it. Some competitions are so prestigious that winning is a true coup. As long as your competitor is up for the challenge, you might as well go for it.

How to get started
So how do you find the right scholarships? First, get started early. The student's junior year in high school is a good time to start your survey.

Next, don't pay anyone to help you search. It's not necessary and it's usually a waste of time. Even if the search service comes back with a long list, chances are your student will qualify for only a fraction of the aid. And most of the decent scholarships can be found quickly and for free.

You can check out one of the many Internet scholarship search engines, such as the one run by student lender Sallie Mae (see the link at left under "Related Sites") or with FastWeb .

You also could spend time with books that summarize available scholarships, such as Chronicle Financial Aid Guide.

An even better place to start, however, is your own community. Here's a partial list of places to check:

  • High school clubs, teams and guidance counselors . Ask the club's adviser, the team's coach and your child's counselor to help you look for appropriate scholarships.
  • Your employer . Many large employers, and even some smaller ones, have scholarship programs. Ask the human resources department.
  • Your union . Chances are good either your local or the national organization, or both, has some money to give out.
  • Your church, temple or mosque .
  • Your community's service organizations . You may not need to be a member of the local Elks, Rotary or Kiwanis for your child to enter.
  • Professional or other organizations , either that you belong to or that represent people working in the areas your child wants to pursue. The Alaska Visitors Association, for example, has scholarships for Alaska residents interested in careers in travel or hotel management.
  • Ethnic or religious organizations . You probably know that the NAACP has scholarships, but so do groups for those of Italian, Polish, Swiss, Chinese and Armenian backgrounds, to name just a few. The Web scholarship engines can help you look.

Your city, county or state government. Georgia offers one of the most generous deals: free tuition at in-state public colleges for those who maintained a B average in school.



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