A timely article: "Get Real on Scholarships"

[Jane in NC]

One of my favorite personal finance columnists, Michelle Singletary of the Washington Post, has a relevant column today. She reviews the book Secrets to Winning a Scholarship by Mark Kantrowitz, the publisher of Fastweb.

 

The book dispels a number of myths. One that I have always wondered about concerns that untapped pool of scholarship funds:

 

Additionally, Kantrowitz warns about scams. The most common myth out there is that there are billions of dollars of scholarship money that go unclaimed every year. This is based on a study from the 1970s that counted employer tuition assistance that was not used by employees. Promoters trying to get parents to pay for access to scholarship information often use this claim. “If you have to pay money to get money, it’s probably a scam,†Kantrowitz writes.

 

Singletary offers sobering statistics on who is receiving scholarships and how much. What muddies these waters for me is distinguishing between "scholarships", "grants", "merit aid" and "financial aid". Without the book in front of me, I am not quite sure about the reported numbers.

 

It is not that scholarship money is nonexistent:

 

Let me be clear. Kantrowitz believes your child should be aggressive in applying for every scholarship for which he or she meets the qualifications. But it’s also important to be realistic about your child’s chances and what it takes to win funding. You’ll find that realism in this book.

 

You can read the column here. Singletary also notes:

 

I’ll be hosting a live online chat with Kantrowitz at noon Eastern time on March 24 at washingtonpost.com/discussions. Every month, I randomly select readers to receive a copy of the featured book or books, donated by the publisher. For a chance to win a copy of “Secrets to Winning a Scholarship,†e-mail colorofmoney@washpost.com with your name and address.

 

Let me close with a personal observation. I believe that homeschoolers, at least on this board, are beating the reported odds. So I'll pat fellow parents on the back for a job well done!

 

Jane

[Kareni]

Thanks for sharing the article, Jane. I'll be looking for Kantrowitz's book at my library (in spite of the fact that applying for a number of scholarships through FastWeb and other sources has yet to yield one scholarship for my daughter; I clearly live in hope!)

 

Regards,

Kareni

[TravelingChris]

I think that the 0.3% figure for complete ride (tuition, housing and merit) figure is probably true. Most of the colleges that both my son and my daughter applied to had no such award and even the ones that did had only a few awards per class. Hardly any state colleges have these and most students attend state schools.

[creekland]

Interesting article. Based on our experience, the best place to find private (non-college based) scholarships are locally. Our guidance office prints a list of scholarships available twice a month. So far, my oldest won two and my middle son won a small one available to non-seniors last year. The competition is still fierce, but nowhere near the odds of the national scholarships.

 

Of course, the best odds still come from the colleges themselves, so I'm certainly not knocking those. My comment is solely for private scholarships.

 

Full rides are rare. Getting decent funding appears to not be so difficult pending grades/scores and choice of college.