If your student is heading to college looking for outside money is always a good idea now there are two common terms that we hear about when it comes to paying for college and those are grants and scholarships while those tend to be used interchangeably there are some very important differences and knowing these differences can increase the chances that your student is going to receive them
So today I’m going to share with you not just what the differences are but also what it takes to receive these if your student is heading to college now we’re going to be releasing on how to pay for college with as little student loan debt as possible
That is what we do we teach families how to avoid student loan debt so that their family and their student can have a strong financial future okay let’s go ahead and dive in now with my own experience of paying for college I received over six figures in scholarships and some of those were indeed grants but not many of them so I wanted to explain the difference of those now neither of these.
Gift Aid:
Gift aid has to be paid back as long as your student meets any kind of criteria that is that are stipulated when they are applying so I’m going to explain what the different criteria can be but this is something that you want to be on the lookout for whenever your student is looking at scholarships and grants now.
Both of these are typically called gift aid because they are gifts again they do not have to be paid back which is amazing right now the main difference between a grant and a scholarship is where the money comes from how your students can apply for it and what it requires to be eligible.
What are College Grants?
So grants are typically given based on family income so a lot of times they are need-based they could be based on the cost of the school maybe disability status and also in some cases career path that your student is pursuing these are typically awarded by the state
Government or the federal government and also in combination with the colleges and universities so it’s not like you have tons of organizations out there giving out grants like scholarships one.
an example: Would be the federal Pell Grant which is based on financial need another one is the teaching education assistance for college and higher education grants basically the teaching grant now is for students who are pursuing a career in education so this is certainly the career based now it is important to note that there are grants for businesses so you will see business grants out there by non-profits organizations government.
Institutions are not what students should be applying for so this was a question we recently received from one of our members inside the scholarship system courses and we had to explain that okay those are for businesses we need to focus on grants that are specifically for students which typically, are through the government so to apply for these grants, it pretty much is just by submitting FAFSA.
before it runs out this depends on the state it depends on the funding amount it depends on the criteria that they’re meeting but still ultimately the sooner the better is always the case when it comes to applying for money for college.
What are Scholarships?
Scholarships of course are my absolute favorite this is my area of expertise we’ve helped families at this point secure about 10 million dollars in funding I think we’re around 9.8 now so we know what we’re doing when it comes to scholarships now.
These scholarships can be given out for almost anything there are merit scholarships that are based on merit qualifications so this could be based on academics, it could be based off leadership or community service some sort of qualifying criteria maybe SAT scores act scores and they’re typically given through the university but then also, scholarships can be awarded by so many privates.
Private businesses institutions non-profits can find them through so many different organizations now I could I do have an entire training on where to find these scholarships because you want to make sure that you’re only applying to legitimate ones with your student not wasting time on scams so if you want to learn my exact steps on how to build that scholarship list you can register.
Difference Between Grants and Scholarships:
Applying for scholarships is the big difference between grants and Scholarship grants are pretty straightforward right you have to submit. FAFSA and make sure that we meet any deadlines and submit it sooner than later before the money runs out and maybe even make sure that we reach out to the university to see if they have any kind of separate application or consideration.
On the other side when it comes applying for scholarships can vary depending on the scholarship it can look completely different from one organization to another and every single application will have its requirements however this is something that we cover in the scholarship system greatly a lot of times you’ll find that those requirements do overlap they might be asking for things like transcripts.
Recommendation letters a resume a list of activities and awards essays are a huge part of this we can link to I’ll go ahead and sometimes students might have to submit a portfolio or they may have to do one of the scholarships that I received that resulted in four thousand dollars per academic school year was an in-person scholarship interview day where we had multiple rounds it was almost like a hiring process but in the end.