Parents and students ask me all the time, “Where can we find scholarships to apply for?”
Here are some places to look for scholarships—starting right now.
Remember, students can apply for scholarships in 8th–12th grades, plus all the way through college, and all the way through grad school.
1. Looking for scholarships online? Look first at scholarship platforms well reviewed by ScholarshipInstitute.org.
Think of a “platform” as a giant website that wants to show you scholarships to apply for.
ScholarshipInstitute.org is an independent organization that reviews each scholarship platform and then scores it based on funding available, ease of use, and trustworthiness. (Platforms lose points for being cluttered, clunky, and hard to use, having outdated information, or having fees, ads, or unrelated offers.)
Here’s my favorite page on the ScholarshipInstitute.org site. It’s currently saying great things about Bold.org, which received a ScholarshipInstitute.org score of 93/100.
2. Search for scholarships on the Scholarship America website.
Scholarship America “works with more than 1,000 organizations across the country to distribute scholarships.” Search for Scholarship America scholarships here.
3. To get access to 1.5 million scholarships right now, get your hands on the best-selling scholarship book, The Ultimate Scholarship Book 2024.
Buy it here, or borrow it from your local library. Any librarian will order it for you.
This book is a directory that contains “Information on 1.5 million scholarships, grants, and prizes.” It features “awards indexed by career goal, major, academics, public service, talent, athletics, religion, ethnicity, and more.” Each entry contains “all the necessary information for students and parents to complete the application process, including eligibility requirements, how to obtain an application, how to get more information about each award, sponsor’s website listings, award amounts, and key deadlines.”
Scholarships for high school, college, graduate, and adult students are included.
Plus, as the owner of this particular book, you can get free updates on every scholarship listed. All you have to do is go online and enter the code for the award that you find in your copy of the book, and you’ll get straight to the latest, most updated information.
Parents and other caring adults note, this is a thick book.
My suggestion? If you can, help the students you care about in the following way:
Use the book’s internet search feature to land on a list of scholarships the student you care about might qualify for. Do this for the student if you can—and you’ll greatly increase the odds of success with scholarships.
That said, student—if you don’t currently have a caring adult who can do this with you, you can do it on your own! Lots of students just like you have done this on their own. If you feel stuck in the process at all, visit a local public high school, ask to speak to a school counselor, show that person this article, and ask for help.
4. Students, if you’re already in college, go to your major department secretary and to your college financial aid office and say this:
“Do you have a list of scholarships I can apply for?”
5. For students not yet in college, local scholarships are a good place to start.
Ask high school guidance counselors for their scholarship lists.
Ask the guidance counselor at your own school, and then check the websites of other high schools near you as well. All you have to do is think of the name of a neighboring high school, and then google the name of that school along with the word “scholarships.” Try it!
6. Minority students, don’t miss the Pearson resource guide for students of color.
This resource, available here, includes a list of scholarships specifically for people of color.
7. Read these posts I’ve written on finding and applying for scholarships. There’s a ton of good information here:
12 Ways to Help Kids Rake In More College Scholarships (Starting in 8th Grade)
Want More Scholarships? GPA Matters Less Than You Think.
Your kid doesn’t want to fill out scholarship applications?
Lots of parents are in the same boat as you! Do what many of them are doing—use this genius idea for making kids eager to fill out scholarship applications.
School and college staff, copy the red and blue text below and paste it into your next communication with parents and students.
(Parents can put this line into Facebook groups or into their personal Facebook statuses.)
Copy this:
Looking for scholarships to apply for? Here are 1.5 million of them, beautifully organized—courtesy of Jeannie Burlowski, author of the book LAUNCH: How to Get Your Kids Through College Debt-Free and Into Jobs They Love Afterward.
Did you find helpful information here? Tweet it out to the people who follow you.
Finally, learn every way possible to reduce college costs without scholarships.
Getting scholarships is a relatively small part of the picture when it comes to getting students through college debt-free. There are many, many other strategies that parents and students can use that can end up being easier and more effective—even if they can’t save up a penny.
Learn about all the debt-free college strategies that have nothing to do with scholarships in my book:
It’s a reference book, so nobody reads the whole thing cover to cover. Pick out what you need to read in it using the fast-paced, 10-minute video instructions here.
You can see hundreds of reviews of this book on Amazon by going to:
You can see why financial advising professionals love LAUNCH, here.
You can see the top 9 questions parents are asking me about LAUNCH, here.
Read just one chapter of LAUNCH every 1–3 months while your child’s in middle school and high school, and you’ll know every viable strategy for debt-free college at exactly the right time to implement it.
And if your child’s already well past middle school? That’s OK; you can run to catch up. But the process of getting your kids through college debt-free goes more smoothly the earlier you start it—especially if you’re not planning to save up any money to pay for college.
Take a step on this right now. Get regular, inspiring help from me—every Monday morning.
Subscribe to my free weekly email newsletter here. (You’ll especially want to do this so I can alert you to important FAFSA changes that will affect you in the future.)
Do you have very specific questions for me about debt-free college and career for your kids?
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Who is Jeannie Burlowski?
Jeannie is a full-time academic strategist, podcast host, and sought-after speaker for students ages 12–26, their parents, and the professionals who serve them. Her writing, speaking, and podcasting help parents set their kids up to graduate college debt-free, ready to jump directly into careers they excel at and love. Her work has been featured in publications such as The Huffington Post, USA Today, Parents Magazine, and US News and World Report, and on CBS News.
Jeannie also helps students apply to law, medical, business, and grad school at her website GetIntoMedSchool.com. You can follow her on Twitter @JBurlowski.
This article was updated on February 19th, 2024. No part of this article was written using AI.