It’s always good to apply for aid from a variety of sources. College and university financial aid offices may provide your student a financial aid package that you believe doesn’t reflect your entire family situation. And other students won’t even qualify for financial aid because of their family income. In either case, there’s nothing to stop your student from applying for outside scholarships. Billions of dollars in scholarship aid go unallocated every year because people don’t find out about them or apply for them. The last thing your student wants is to miss out.
Scholarships are one form of financial aid, as I explain in Primer on Financial Aid. Since it’s classified as gift aid, scholarships don’t have to be paid back. Bonus!
Search and Conquer, or, Where to Find Them
There are many online sources. My personal favorite is Fastweb. Once you’re in their system, they’ll send you updates regularly on the kinds of scholarships your student may be eligible for. I still receive Fastweb updates every few days even though my student is now a senior in college. Another course is Local Scholarships from U. S. News and World Report. Finaid.org also offers information on Scholarships which is pretty comprehensive.
Regardless of which scholarship source you find, your student needs to be prepared to write essays—maybe lots of essays, but that’s also good preparation for college. And for a number of these scholarships, especially for those less than $1,000, often very few people apply for them. Sometimes just by applying your student will have at shot at winning. For other scholarships, not so much. But your student will only know this by following through and completing the application process.
Impact on the Financial Aid Package
How does getting an outside scholarship impact your student’s aid? The worst case scenario is if the financial aid office takes away what is called gift aid, meaning a grant. That means you’re just getting less money from the college or university, so you might feel your student wasted their time applying for it. In a way, that’s correct. On the other hand, your student has earned a scholarship by competing for it, and they can do so again. The College board addresses this in their article about Outside Scholarships. For other scholarships, the financial aid office may choose to reduce your student’s eligibility for loans or self-help aid. That’s actually a good thing, because it means they won’t have to borrow as much.
Here’s another source your student may be able to access. In Maryland, our delegates and state senators have funds they can provide for their constituents, and I can’t tell you how many times my students have completely slept through the selection process for these scholarships. For some of the delegates and senators, there isn’t much competition for the money at all. Who wants to throw away free money? Make sure it isn’t your student. See if the elected officials in your state provide scholarship aid to their constituents.
I’ve discovered that students don’t want to go through the process of applying for scholarships figuring that they won’t get it anyway. The only thing they can be sure of, is if they don’t apply they won’t get a dime. And that’s something they can take to the bank.