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If you want basic, general, overall information about college grants and scholarships, then please go to the Financial Aid Basics page. However, listed below, you will find a list of resources that will help you find grants, scholarships, and some loans for college.
Many of the books and online "free money" databases make it sound so very easy to find the right grant/scholarship for you. For MANY people, it is NOT that easy. We want to emphasize that, for many people, it takes a lot of time, effort, and patience to obtain grant and scholarship money. Many grants, scholarships, and free money are awarded on very specific criteria. For that reason, we have listed a number of what we feel are very good resources for finding college grants, scholarships, and some loans. Hopefully, some of these resources will help.
There are organizations on the Web that will provide financial aid search services, for free. These services will allow you to input information into a search box and then search for grants that are listed in their database (computer). We strongly recommend that you read the EXCELLENT article at College Scholarships.org that compares different grant and scholarship search services such as Fastweb, Scholarships.com, and many more. This article goes a long way to explain why there are varying results with the searches http://www.collegescholarships.org/search/helpful-reviews.htm. The article is a little old, BUT, the information shows that scholarship search services can be very different.
These services allow access to millions of grants and scholarships. The services are a convenient, quick, easy way to help you find grants and scholarships that are available for you.
Definitely, the search services are NOT perfect. If you receive a list of grants, then probably many on the list will not apply to you. Hopefully, some will apply to you, but many of "hits" may not be for you. Many of the scholarship search services ask you to fill out a personal profile so that the computer program can search the database in order to find the right grants/scholarships for you, based on your profile. ALWAYS remember to avoid revealing sensitive information (like social security numbers). There are plenty of advertisements on the free scholarship services so read the pages carefully to make sure that you do not receive unwanted material. PLEASE pay attention to the web pages as some of the pages/forms may be ADVERTISEMENTS for colleges that you are filling out and NOT the scholarship website's profile/registration. Make sure that you are filling out the scholarship website's profile.
There are pros and cons to these free online scholarship search services, but it appears to us that the pros outweigh the cons. Of the searches that we performed on some of the following search services, we have to admit, that we were presented with some encouraging leads. As we stated above, out of the lists that we received, only some of the grants looked like something that we could use. However, it is possible that only a few leads may be all that we need. If you do not receive a list that contains many grant and scholarships, then you may want to try the survey again, but change some of the options / criteria that you used before. Maybe you were too specific the first time around.
YouTube Video: How to Find College Grants and Scholarships is a short six-minute video that gives you an overall look at where to find college grants and scholarships. If you have no idea on where to start to find financial aid, then this video will give you a good idea on how to go about finding free money in the form of financial aid, grants, and scholarships for college or trade schools for a variety of groups of people such as nursing students, single moms, women, traditional students, non-traditional students, and just about any U.S. Citizen seeking scholarships with the least amount of eligibility requirement.
WARNING: More and more scholarship search services on the Web ask you to fill in a form for a type of registry. Some of the forms can be confusing. PLEASE pay attention to the web pages as some of the pages/forms may be ADVERTISEMENTS for colleges that you are filling out and NOT the scholarship website's profile/registration.
College Scholarships.org is a good website for finding information about loans, as well as grants and scholarships. It is worth your time to explore this site with its many links, because there is some helpful information about college on this site.
Fastweb is a scholarship service that is free. It is part of the Monster.com company. Fastweb is one of the more popular and recognized free scholarship search services. You need to register and make a number of selections for your profile. Like most of the free search services, if you do not like the results, then go back and change (edit) some of your original profile criteria and then perform another search. However, Fastweb continues to provide a list of scholarships without you needing to register. The list is located at https://www.fastweb.com/college-scholarships/featured-scholarships. Please view the menus found at the top of their web pages for finding more helpful information.
Scholarships.com is another good website to find information about college, especially financial aid. Please take a look at the menu at the top, bottom, and sides of their web pages to help you find more information. Over the years, Scholarships.com has gone the way of many scholarship search websites. At one time, they provided lists of links to a lot of scholarships on a variety of their web pages. However, it appears that they want you to register in order for them to provide a list of scholarships that they feel will match what you looking for. However, Scholarships.com continues to provide some menus that will provide a list of scholarships, without needing you to register. A good example of the lists are located at the bottom of the financial aid page at: https://www.scholarships.com/financial-aid/. In my opinion, Scholarships.com continues to be a very good source for finding financial information.
CollegeBoard.com is a very well-respected organization that has been involved with college education since 1900. "College Board is a mission-driven not-for-profit organization that connects students to college success and opportunity. Founded in 1900, College Board was created to expand access to higher education." Over a number of years, College Board has updated and EXPANDED their online presence on this very helpful website. PLEASE feel free to view their web pages. I provide a list of some places where you may want to start on their website.
https://about.collegeboard.org/
https://bigfuture.collegeboard.org/
https://bigfuture.collegeboard.org/scholarships is the LONG LIST OF SCHOLARSHIPS. However, MANY of the scholarships have specific requirements.
UNIGO.com offers A LOT of information about scholarships and colleges. It is well worth your time to view many of their web pages. PLEASE be aware of their menus at the top, sides, and bottom of the pages. UNIGO will fund a number of their own scholarships. A LOT of scholarships and financial information is offered on the UNIGO website.
NICHE.com is another service similar to UNIGO. NICHE provides information about colleges and financial sources. NICHE will fund some of their own scholarships as well as list many other scholarships. The scholarships web page is located at https://www.niche.com/colleges/scholarships/
SallieMae's scholarship service is free and you need to register. This organization is well-known and can be considered one of the "nation's leading provider of saving, planning, and paying for education programs." As I say with many of the websites listed on this page, please look around SallieMae's website for more information.
Michigan State Libraries has a "Grants for Individuals" web page that is a compilation that "focuses primarily on funding opportunities for individuals, such as financial aid or scholarships for students, rather than funding for nonprofit organizations." This website has a lot of information about "Grants and Related Resources" for a variety of people and organizations.
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