Searching for Scholarships

Scholarships provide gift money that does not have to be repaid. That makes scholarships an attractive way to help pay for college. Most scholarships are awarded directly by the college you attend, but there are also other sources of scholarship aid. Federal and state governments, employers, credit and professional organizations, some private companies, foundations, individuals, and religious and civic organizations offer scholarships. But how can you find out about these?

To search for scholarships, choose a couple of the free scholarship search engines noted below. And remember, any scholarship service that requests money is likely to be a scam.

• FastWeb (fastweb.com) connects you to targeted scholarships based on your profile (strengths, interests, skills, groups).

• Mach25 (collegenet.com) is a free web version of Wintergreen/Orchard House Scholarship Finder database.

• SRN (studentscholarshipsearch.com) matches students to appropriate scholarships based on strengths, talents, field of study, sports, achievements, background.

• College Resource Network (collegeresourcenetwork.com) also includes many minority scholarships in its database.

• Cappex (cappex.com) comprises a database of scholarships worth over $11 billion.

• BigFuture (bigfuture.collegeboard.org) offers a searchable scholarship database.

• Salliemae (salliemae.com) includes over 3 million scholarships in its database.

• Scholarships.com (scholarships.com) compares your background with its database and identifies good matches.

Happy searching!