College Grants and Scholarships...Where's Yours?

Who do you think that college grants and scholarships are for?

• super smart students?
• minority groups?
• the very, very poor or the very, very rich?

We've all heard of weird scholarships- you know, short people scholarships, scholarships for red hair or for being left-handed, but what these really tell you is that you can never tell what is important to other people (or organizations).

And if it is important to someone, chances are there's a scholarship for it. Qualifications for any scholarship can be as broad or narrow as the endower cares to make them. Private scholarship money for college has become increasingly important as many states and schools are cutting back on the amount of free money they provide.

There is even a program which substitutes college school loans for the grant and scholarship money financed by institutional endowments.

The real question is: How do you find the scholarship(s) meant for you?

• You could rely on your guidance counselor- I'm sure he or she can recall all the details of the 1.3 million (and growing!) different scholarships out there and know which one you'd be perfect for.
• You could comb through list after list of scholarships yourself- After all, you have nothing better to do for the next few months, right?

Or you could do what many people do- nothing at all.

That's why, every year, there are thousands of unclaimed scholarships. Some of these just get rolled over for future winners, and others get returned to their donors.

All unclaimed scholarships for college are wasted opportunities. And its not just the weird scholarships that sit there- some Coca Cola scholarships, Walmart scholarships, Bell lab scholarships, Xerox scholarships, Gates scholarships also go unclaimed.

Search for Scholarship Money for College

A better starting place for your college grants and scholarship search is here.

This is a fairly new tool by the U.S. Department of Education. Although the instructions imply that the keyword should be about your course of study, you can type in a geographic region or health-related condition, or any type of criteria that might be used for a scholarship that describes you- financial need, your school, single parent, your ethnicity, your class level or age, etc.. And it isn't limited to just scholarships for high school seniors; awards for nontraditional students and graduate school scholarships are included.

Do as many searches as you can think of that might apply to your circumstances. It is free; you do not have to register; and there is no commercial spam.

Start your searching early- even before applications might be available for the year you want to attend. Be organized; jot down notes/dates about the ones you will want to apply for later. You can use this organizer to help you:

Scholarship planner