Free Scholarships and Grants

How to apply for free scholarships and grants. Don't fall for scholarship scams.

Figuring out how to pay for college is one of the most challenging aspects of starting college. As hundreds of thousands of families each year struggle with the reality of the high cost of college tuition, scholarship scams target needy students and their families looking for the cheapest way to pay for college. Over $100 million is lost each year due to this kind of fraud.

Free Scholarships

Scholarships and grants are free money for college, because they do not need to be repaid. All legitimate scholarships and grant are free, meaning they are free to apply and if awarded, free to collect the money.

Avoid Scholarship Scams

Following are a few clear signs to look out for to guard against fraudulent financial aid offers:

All scholarships are free. Therefore, there is no cost to find or apply for a scholarship. Scholarship scams will almost always involve paying some kind of an up front fee for their scholarship finding and matching services. In reality, the same scholarships are available in public domain, usually online, for everyone to find.

How to find free scholarships and grants? To begin with, start with your own high school counselors. They have access to numerous lists of scholarships and will share them with you at no cost.

Additionally, the local library can be used to research scholarships, or simply research it online. So, never turn to a paid scholarship matching service to find a scholarship for college.

Submit your Free Application for Federal Student Aid, or FAFSA to start looking for free scholarships and grants. For an overview of different types of scholarships, see Scholarship Money for College.

Unused scholarships Another sign of scholarship scams is that they claim that there are private scholarships that are neglected to be used every year. The truth is that private scholarships are funded by certain organizations for specific people, or specific qualifications, and specific academic fields. These kinds of scholarships are, in fact, very limited. Most unclaimed scholarships are local scholarships and will not be found in these phony scholarship scam sites.

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