There are many benefits of choosing to pursue a graduate degree. Whether that be advancing with your career quicker or making friends for life.
But there’s no hiding the substantial costs of choosing to go down the graduate school route, many graduates will find themselves repaying loans for many years to come post-graduation.
As a result of this, many students will look to receive financial aid in the form of grad school scholarships. Today we’ll be looking at some tips for helping find this all-important financial help.
The most common ways of funding graduate school currently consist of the following options:
Student loans
Normally taken out with either the federal government or through a private lender. These loans are always repayable.
Fellowships
A funding award is given to students to help subsidize the costs of study. These are harder to receive as they’re often based on merit for a variety of reasons.
Scholarships
One of the two methods we will be talking about today. Scholarships are financial rewards based on merit and will not need repaying.
Grants
The other method we will be talking about today. Usually given based on your financial circumstances and distributed by your state, college, or the federal government.
How can I find them?
It is estimated that only 15% of graduate students will seek help in the form of grants, fellowships, and scholarships. You should always look to see what is available before applying for student loans. As some of these options are quite literally free money.
Scholarship search engines
Scholarship search engines are an excellent way of finding what options are out there in the form of scholarships. These online databases have a great deal of information to help inform graduates of their potential options. Here are some of the providers:
Career One Stop
Sponsored by the U.S Department of Labor, over 8,000 scholarships, grants, and fellowship opportunities can be found here. The website allows you to filter your search based on a number of factors, making your search easy.
Unigo
Designed for high school seniors, college students, and graduate students the site has a wealth of resources to help assist with your search. Unigo themselves even offer their own $10,000 scholarship annually.
Scholly
Scholly have an easy to navigate mobile app which makes searching for scholarship easier than ever before. The app will even assist with helping you edit your all-important scholarship application essays.
Scholarship America
Scholarship America offers one of the larger single scholarship awards, with aid in the region of up to $25,000 being given out by their generous and rewarding scheme. The company also have their own searchable database to help you look for alternate scholarships.
Fast Web
Fast Web offers a financial aid database which is host to over 1.5 million scholarships. The service allows you to pinpoint and track scholarships that you’re interested in pursuing.
Sallie Mae
Simply register online, make a profile and Sallie Mae will do all the rest for you. Well not quite, but Sallie Mae will help sift through all the available scholarships you’re eligible for. Once your account is set up, you will just need to wait for alerts when matching scholarships become available.
Are There Any Other Ways of Finding Them?
Fortunately, there are many other methods of seeking both scholarships and grants. One way is by checking what is available through professional organizations.
One example is the NCPA Foundation (National Community Pharmacists Association). They offer scholarships for pharmacy students from a variety of providers within their industry.
Consider what you intend to study and then network with businesses within that area to see what options are available for you.
Another great idea is to check with the college you intend to apply for, each will have their own unique funding opportunities which may be able to help assist you.
Summary
Always remember to get started early with your application, which will give you the best chance of being successful and make the whole process overall less overwhelming.
Keep your options open and make sure you search all avenues when it comes to finding financial support through scholarships and grants.
Remember that there are many niche scholarships and grants out there aimed at particular courses, sports, academic achievements to name a few.
We hope you have enjoyed this article and wish you the best of luck in searching for financial support towards your further studies.
Original Article:
https://blogs.sap.com/2020/05/24/tips-and-tech-for-financing-continued-education/