The Wall Street Journal published an article yesterday about a student’s story of “winning scholarships” (scare quotes are mine) to attend NYU. They talk about her applying for lots of little scholarships, but they were still going to struggle with paying for NYU. But in the end, they get a bunch of financial aid from NYU based on income.
I guess this is just a nice reminder that outside scholarships are nice, but definitely not making a big dent compared to what colleges offer.
Thx for posting. This says a lot:
It takes 44 applications on average to win a private scholarship, according to ScholarshipOwl, which helps students find and apply for scholarships.
This thread is useful for students interested in winning scholarships. What she makes clear is that it’s a lot of work. I won $292,500 in outside scholarships and almost $425k total. My Story.
Note that outside awards need to all be reported to the college and sometimes these outside scholarships reduce the award being offered but the school itself.
For one of my kids, who didn’t fall into any 'special interest groups", I’m pretty certain that working a minimum wage job for the hours required to complete the applications to procure any money would have been more financial beneficial (or at least a sure thing).
For my other one, there were a number of scholarships or loan reduction programs for her major (education). Many of them had to be paid back if they did not teach for the required number of years after graduation. Where we live, it can take a few years before you get a teaching job. She did not initially apply for those as we did not want her to be under that kind of pressure. I believe she applied for one starting her junior year as she was getting feedback that both of the schools she was placed in for her field experienc were interested in hiring her after graduation.
(Full disclosure: we pay all of our kids’ educational expenses and let them pocket any scholarship money beyond what the school gives them for merit. They both chose to go to less expensive schools and also get large merit scholarships so they came in way under budget.)
The details in the story don’t really add up to me.
“Even though NYU said she wasn’t eligible for financial aid from the school…”
“When she got into NYU in February 2019, the lack of aid didn’t deter her.”
"For her freshman year, Bille received the maximum Pell Grant, federal aid for low-income students. It came to more than $6,000. Still, come springtime she needed to find nearly $60,000. "
How does she become eligible for a max Pell grant, but not eligible for any NYU aid?
Who enrolls at a school with no way to pay?
What school allows a student to enroll with no way to pay?
Sounds like poorly plotted fiction