College Scholarships and Awards: Searching for Scholarships, Fellowships, and Grants

Buy this book »

Maybe you've been carefully saving for the day your child begins college, or perhaps you've worked on the assumption that Bruiser is going to be the starting nose tackle for a Division I school's football team and will receive a full athletic scholarship. No matter which category you fall into, as you move closer to that fateful day, you may find that your planning hasn't produced the desired results. Maybe the stock market didn't perform as well as you'd expected, or Bruiser is actually more comfortable ripping the guts out of a computer than a live opponent. As you look at that first tuition bill, you may realize that you don't have enough saved, and you can't possibly make up the full amount of the difference from your current earnings.

Now, you could panic — after all, you've told your child all along that you expect him to attend college and you'll somehow find a way to pay for it. A better option, however, is to take that same energy and begin researching what available free, and not-so-free, money is out there in the form of outright grants, scholarships, fellowships, and guaranteed payments for service, just waiting for your child to apply for it.

Fortunately, finding sources of free money isn't nearly as difficult as finding the lost ark or the sales receipt for the toaster that blew up the first time you used it. You just need to know the different places to look for the money.

Before you start your search, though, you should be aware that the words scholarship, fellowship, and grant are often used interchangeably by various organizations, but they essentially refer to the same thing: money that the organization provides to your student for higher education expenses without any expectation on the organization's part that they will be repaid. These terms do have some subtle differences, however. Generally speaking, a scholarship is paid to undergraduate students, a fellowship goes to graduate or postgraduate students (often with a research or teaching requirement attached), and grants are usually associated with need (but scholarships and fellowships may also be need-based). The basic theory is the same, however.

You may think that your child isn't smart enough, talented enough, or poor enough to warrant someone else picking up even a part of his tab at college, but you're probably wrong. Money is available from a wide variety of sources, and it runs the gamut from small stipends to full tuition grants. Many of these aren't based on either ability or need; they merely require that you apply for the funds. Do your research and check all available sources — you may be quite surprised to find out just how much money is out there.

When conducting your search, keep track of all the different ways that your child may be able to access scholarship money. Scholarships are awarded not only on merit and need, but also on the basis of residency, ethnic or religious background, college choice, career path, and whether he is left-handed. Some scholarships are awarded only to incoming freshmen; others don't begin until a student's senior year. Don't assume that your child won't qualify; instead, work on the assumption that, if you dig hard enough, something out there has his name written on it. And, if you fail this year to snag some funding, don't give up — as any good Red Sox fan knows, just wait until next year.

Beware of scholarship scams, where for a small (or large) entry fee, your student is guaranteed a scholarship, or given access to scholarship information that is supposedly not available for free. Remember, all scholarship information is free for the asking, and you must apply to the scholarship directly (not through any middleman) for the grant. Anyone who asks for your credit card information or charges you a fee for any scholarship-related service is scamming you. Always keep in mind that scholarships are a classic case of receiving money on the basis of hard work, good looks, talent, or a combination of the three, and nothing else; there should be no need for you to pull out your wallet at any point in the application process.