Free College Scholarships College scholarships differ from loans in that they are effectively a gift and do not need to be paid back. (However, some have requirements attached to them such as requiring the graduate to work for the company that grants the scholarship money.) Scholarships come in many varieties and from a variety of sources. There are literally millions of dollars available for education in America. Scholarships are generally grouped in to five groupings. Merit: This is financial aid for which financial need is not used to determine the recipient. The recipient is chosen based on there academic, artistic or athletic ability. These scholarships are generally given out in an effort to attract talented individuals to particular institutions or to motivate them to pursue their particular talents. Need: Need based scholarships are awarded to individuals who are not economically able to acquire their desired education. They are often given to individuals who have particular talents, but can not afford college (or other schools) tuitions. These scholarships may pay for some or all of a student's tuition and can even assist with other living expenses. Sociology: This is financial aid where applicants must initially qualify by race, religion, or national origin. After filtering the applicants based on their ethnicity, additional factors are taken into consideration to determine the final recipients. Institutional: These are scholarships awarded by a specific college or university (institution) to a student planning to attend that institution. General: These are other scholarships which are awarded for a variety of reasons that do not fall into one of the above categories. These may be for reasons of the student's association with the objectives of the sponsoring organization. For example, some corporations give scholarships to their employees' children or based upon academic success. Others are awarded based on a lottery style system, winners being selected at random from the pool of applicants. These five groups represent a vast fund of money available to students, wise (not necessarily the smartest) students will attempt to obtain some of these funds, and thousands of them get their college tuition paid for every year!





Did You Know? Americans with a college degrees make over twice as much those who didn't attend college. Education pays and you can even get it paid for with money from free scholarships and grants!