Nearly every student is eligible to receive free funding for his
or her education expenses. Both the U.S. Federal and State
Governments, as well as private organizations, offer free money
to assist students with paying for a college education.
This is money that never has to be repaid! These free funds come
in the form of Scholarships, Fellowships, Internships and also
Government Grants. In this article, we will clear up some
confusion about what these are and how you can use them to pay
for your education.
Your first step should be to obtain a FAFSA document (Free
Application for Federal Student Aid). You can acquire one of
these applications from the college you plan to attend or,
online by following the steps at: http://www.fafsa.ed.gov
You will want to fully complete and send in this document by the
deadline. For future reference, you will need to do this every
year to continue to remain eligible for government funded
financial aid. This single application is the key to numerous
federally funded programs. Once your application is processed,
you will receive a statement in the mail that lets you know how
much funding you are eligible for.
If you find out that the amount of funding you qualify for still
doesn't meet your needs, you can pursue additional private and
government grants, scholarships and other programs. You can
search online for for student grants and scholarships that you
may also qualify for. This is often a tedious task, but careful
research can uncover some excellent opportunities.
What is the difference between a Scholarship, Fellowship and a
Grant?
Scholarships & Fellowships - Scholarships and fellowships are
very similar, the term fellowship is generally applied to post
graduate studies, while scholarship generally defines
undergraduate awards. Scholarships can be funded with either
public or private moneys. Oftentimes, you must qualify for a
scholarship by having good grades and SAT scores. There are also
scholarships that award students for their excellence in sports.
You will find that there are also many unusual scholarships and
fellowships available that cater to students with various other
qualifications.
Government Grants - Government grants for college are government
funds set aside to assist people in raising funds for school.
There are numerous government grants that students can take
advantage of, in conjunction with scholarships to enable you to
pay for college. Your best asset here is the FAFSA document,
that we discussed earlier.
As you can see, government grants, scholarships and more are
available to help you pay for college. All you need to do is due
diligence, a bit of paperwork and perhaps some research and you
will uncover more funding options than you knew existed.
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