Scholarships that Students Can Apply for to Pay for College

Like many students across the country, I remember intensely searching for scholarships to ease the burden my parents would have to pay for my college tuition.

I applied to anything and everything I could find, whether it was an obscure scholarship on the Internet or something my mom found at her school’s library. Through diligence, I found and earned enough to make my Whittier College education more affordable, so I’d like to share with you some of the scholarships you might want to apply for in order to earn money that you can spend on college tuition, or items like textbooks that your college professors assign you.

Essay Scholarship

As a high school senior, I remember one of the first scholarships I applied for was the SchoolsFirst Member Education Award for $500. Since my mom worked as a high school librarian, she sat right next to her school’s counseling center, where she sometimes found interesting contests and scholarships that she really, really encouraged me to apply for.

One day, she brought home a printout for a Member Education scholarship award sponsored by SchoolsFirst Federal Credit Union. I looked through the application and spent plenty of time on the required essay, proofreading it and making sure it perfectly addressed the short essay prompt. Like most scholarship essays, it asked me to highlight my community involvement, so I made sure I mentioned not just the academic activities I was involved in, but also how I was working within my local community. I was lucky because I had been working for my city’s nonprofit newspaper for a number of years.

I applied for this financial aid award in my senior year of high school, applied again in my first year of college, and applied for a final time in my sophomore year of college. Each time, I ended up winning the entire $500.

For the SchoolsFirst scholarship, I had to ask a community member and a teacher for letters of recommendation. This is true for a lot of scholarships, so be sure to maintain strong relationships with your teachers or professors so that they can help you when you need it the most. Also, if you plan to apply for a scholarship that requires any sort of essay or other paperwork, make sure to pay really close attention to deadlines because you don’t want to miss out.

To be eligible for the SchoolsFirst scholarship, you need to be a member of SchoolsFirst FCU with your own member number, have an unweighted GPA of 2.5 or above, and be registered at an accredited college or university.

Talent Scholarship

During the summer between my first and second year of college, I distinctly remember applying for a rather hard-to-find scholarship called the Share Your Talent Scholarship, a $1,000 tuition scholarship sponsored by Green Light Booking. They wanted me to showcase my special skill or talent, and how it’s grown, through a 3-minute video. My talent happened to be photography. I remember waiting until the last minute to apply for this one, which is something you want to avoid doing. However, I was able to record, create, and edit an original video in the nick of time—and earned $1,000 toward my college tuition.

The good news for this scholarship was that they judged based on the content of the video, not the quality of the recording. Anyone who is 18 or older and is attending or will attend an accredited college or university is eligible to apply.

If your talent is in the arts, Whittier College also has talent scholarships for art, music, and theatre. I applied for the Whittier College Art Talent Scholarship for about $2,000. I had to write an essay, submit a bunch of my artwork, and get a recommendation from my high school art teacher. Everything worked out nicely and the next thing I knew, I was invited to the College’s Wardman Gym art building, where I was taken on a tour of the facilities by some of the professors who I would soon get to know. I was incredibly happy and relieved to receive the email and the letter informing me that I had earned the art talent scholarship and that $2,000 would go toward my tuition ($1,000 per semester), and it’s renewable for all of my four years at Whittier.

Merit Scholarship

When I was considering going to Whittier College in my senior year of high school, I applied for their John Greenleaf Whittier Merit Scholarship, which was different from the other ones I’d applied for before. All first-year and transfer applicants to the College are automatically considered. The scholarship is offered at your time of admission to Whittier, renewable for 4 years, and range from $5,000 to $31,000 per year.

Before I was called in, I had to write an initial essay about myself and why I needed the money. On the second round of judging for the scholarship, the college invited me into their community, which for me happened to be a rainy weekend in December. They let me and a small handful of candidates sit in on a philosophy class and then took us to a room in their newly designed science building to write an essay. That essay allowed me to be one of many students to get the funding needed to attend college. Both essays granted me $30,000 toward my college tuition, with $15,000 going toward each semester.    

Search for Scholarships

I’ve listed four scholarships that I applied for and received, but there are many others out there depending on what field of study you’re interested in. You can visit your college’s financial aid website or check out some other websites, such as RaiseMe's micro-scholarships, Fastweb, Scholarships.com, and Colleges of Distinction's Mega List of Scholarships.

Scholarship opportunities are often available through employers, local churches or synagogues, or civic organizations, so be sure to keep your eyes out. You can also Google scholarships by subject matter, but you need to double check who’s sponsoring them and where they’re coming from. Don’t give out personal information to unknown organizations and don’t pay money to apply for a scholarship. Real scholarships are free.