It’s no secret that college is expensive. With tuition costs rising every year, paying for college becomes more and more difficult. That’s why scholarships are so helpful. The more scholarships a student wins, the less student loans they have to take out and pay back.
Scholarships are free money that don’t need to be paid back. They are often from a college/ university, organization, or commemoration fund. Scholarships are a donation made to support a student or future student’s education because of an academic achievement or other condition/situation in their life.
There are a lot of different types of scholarships available. For example, there is a scholarship for people who are left handed, live in a town with fewer than 10,000 people and for students who have a 4.0 GPA. You name it, there is probably a scholarship somewhere out there for it.
Finding scholarships that pertain to a student’s needs can be tricky and time consuming, which is why websites like Fastweb.com are so helpful. Fastweb is the leading scholarship search provider, and the best part is that it’s free.
Fastweb does the hard work by finding scholarships and compiling them into a list organized by deadline. Students start by filing out a profile and answering a slew of questions. After completing the profile it will show the scholarships that match up. After completing my profile, it showed that I matched with 138 scholarships and the total value of all eligible scholarship winnings was $281,400! Now, granted, it would be impossible to win all of them, but that is a lot of free money that I can apply for to reduce the amount I need to take out in student loans or have to pay out of pocket.
Each scholarship posted has its requirements and eligibility standards set by the actual organization, not Fastweb. In looking through the scholarships that I paired with, not all of them were a perfect match. Some were not a match at all, so be sure to read through all of the details on the actual scholarships website. There is also a section full of articles from past scholarship winners to give other students advice on how to win.
Fastweb.com also has great resources on career planning, financial aid and student loan information. Check it out, apply for scholarships, and let us at One Stop know if you win! Best of luck!
