Scholarship Searches for Students

Post-secondary education — whether it’s a four-year university, a two-year community college, or trade school — is pricey. In fact, it’s one of the most expensive investments that one makes in their lifetime. For the 2016–2017 school year, the average cost of tuition and fees was $33,480 for private colleges, $9,650 for in-state residents at public colleges, and $24,930 for out-of-state residents at public universities. And that’s just tuition and fees. Add another $11,890 for room and board at private schools and $10,440 at public schools.

While those figures are shocking and seemingly out-of-reach, fear not: there are ample scholarships available to help fund your post-secondary education. And, this money comes from a wide variety of places and for an even greater number of reasons.

First and foremost, the college or university will likely offer you a financial aid package based on merit and/or financial need. This is one of the myriad reasons why a high grade point average, a challenging course load, and solid standardized test scores are important.

Second, the counseling or college/career office at your high school is an incredible source of scholarship information. They likely even have a bulletin, newsletter, or website on which these opportunities are accumulated.

Furthermore, while it can be incredibly overwhelming to look for scholarships online, there are countless search engines that help narrow down your search:

• Scholarships.com: Scholarships.com is one of the largest scholarship databases, listing more than 3.7 million scholarships and grants. This is a free tool that allows individuals to search by academic major, extracurricular activities, first-in-family status, grade point average, race and ethnicity, geographic location, and more.

• Fastweb: Fastweb is an excellent website that allows both parents and students to search for scholarships based on strengths, interests, and skills, among many other self-selected criteria. The database features more than 1.5 million different scholarships, ranging from small dollar amounts to tens of thousands.

• Peterson’s: Peterson’s is an incredibly extensive search engine that boasts 5,000 scholarship providers; 1.5 million scholarships, grants, fellowships, prizes, and forgivable loans; and $10 billion in scholarship awards. The filters allow students and families to narrow down the search by various criteria or to look for specific awards by name or keyword.

• Unigo: Unigo is a database that includes 3.6 million college scholarships worth more than $14 billion. The Scholarship Match feature allows individuals to search for awards that best fit their strengths and skills, but the website also separates scholarships into distinct categories, such as company-sponsored scholarships, minority scholarships, and athletics scholarships to makes searching even easier.

• Cappex: Cappex claims to be the “college-decision headquarters” and contains more than $11 billion in scholarship awards. Students complete their profile to find scholarships to best match their needs. Additionally, scholarships are grouped into sections for merit (including academic, athletics, arts, etc.), private and foundation-based awards, and school-specific packages. Additionally, Cappex offers more than $30,000 in its own unique scholarships, largely based on well-rounded profiles, including the $1,000 Cappex Easy College Money Scholarship, My College Review, and Cappex #1 Fan.

Finally, a more pointed Google search can help you find specific scholarship opportunities. Think about characteristics that describe you, activities with which you are involved, places your parents/guardians work — and search accordingly. There are scholarships for everything: left-handed people, children of veterans, Asian-Pacific Islanders, future math teachers, animal lovers, Muslim women, tall people, skateboarders, and the list could go on and on.

The price tag on a college education is likely one of the highest numbers you will see on any purchase in your life. But when you consider the amount of “free” money you can receive, it doesn’t seem quite so daunting.

Happy Scholarship Search!