Making the Most of Scholarships

Making the Most of Scholarships

Taylor Stewart, Photo Editor

For most seniors seeking to further their education by going to college, scholarships are a financial must. College is so expensive, especially if you plan on going to a university or somewhere out of state. The average cost of tuition per year for a student going to an in-state 4 year university was around $22,000 last year, and that number will continue to rise. Subsequently, students are scrambling to get financial aid and scholarships to avoid being thousands of dollars in debt.

However, what happens when certain scholarships don’t receive any applicants? Or when they do receive some, but none of the applicants meet the criteria? Well, recent research has shown that over $100 million of scholarship money goes unawarded each year for those exact reasons. 

As a result, many students have resorted to focusing more on the quantity of scholarships they apply for rather than the quality. In other words, if you want to have more financial help with college, apply for as many less time-consuming scholarships as you possibly can, rather than working on one really large scholarship for a longer amount of time. This will give you more opportunities to win and be granted money. Even though they are smaller scholarships, a little amount of money is better than none at all. Also, if you apply to enough, all of the little amounts will begin to add up and prove to be a big financial help. Who knows? You may end up applying for a few with no other applicants and automatically be granted the money!