| It takes more than making the grades and scoring | | | | competitiveness, but broadening their search to local |
| high on the SATs for students to be college-bound. | | | | opportunities will be to their advantage. |
| Each year, students are faced with the burden of | | | | Many scholarships are offered by churches and local |
| figuring out how they are going to pay for their | | | | small businesses. But these scholarships are not |
| college education. Knowing how and where to search | | | | always widely advertised. Finding out about these |
| for aid can make the difference in rather or not | | | | scholarship opportunities are not difficult with a little |
| many students will be able to attend college. | | | | work. |
| Outside from personal or family savings, there are | | | | Visiting a few churches and reading the news letters |
| government grants, federal or personal loans, and | | | | can be an effective way to find out if a particular |
| scholarships. Government grants are almost always | | | | church is offering any scholarships. Listening to the |
| limited and only cover a fraction of the total cost of | | | | local AM stations is also an effective way to get |
| attending college. Federal and personal loans are debt, | | | | information about scholarship offers from local |
| which has to be repaid after graduating. Loans are | | | | churches and charitable organizations. Many churches |
| great resources for covering expenses left over | | | | also have websites that are indexed in the popular |
| after there is no other source of income available. | | | | search engines. Using Yahoo or Google to search on |
| Scholarships are, for some students, the only hope | | | | a few small organizations in town can yield some |
| for attending college with little or no upfront cash and | | | | valuable information as well. |
| without piling up thousands of dollars of debt. | | | | To reach even more scholarship sources, it would be |
| Each year, there are billions of dollars of free | | | | a good idea to take notice of local small businesses. |
| scholarship money that goes unclaimed. Students are | | | | Many small businesses usually give scholarship to |
| just not aware that this money is available. The most | | | | students that it has a direct or indirect affiliation with. |
| visible scholarship monies are offered by large | | | | For example, a local business may offer scholarships |
| corporations and charities. These scholarships receive | | | | to sons and daughters of their employees. Asking |
| thousands of applications for a small pot of available | | | | mom and dad to keep watch for these opportunities |
| money. It is usually the local, community based | | | | can pay off big, as these types of aid almost always |
| scholarships that are overlooked by students. | | | | go without notice and have very little competition. |
| When applying for scholarships, students must be as | | | | Taking advantage of every opportunity to receive |
| diverse as possible with their search. National | | | | the most scholarship funding can benefit students in |
| organizations advertise there scholarship opportunities | | | | two ways. First, students with an abundance of |
| in widely distributed media outlets. The competition | | | | scholarship aid can attend college for little or no out |
| for these scholarships is very high and is limited to a | | | | of pocket money. Second, students will not graduate |
| few exceptional students. Students should continue | | | | with an enormous amount of debt. |
| to apply for these scholarships despite the | | | | |