3 Ways to Earn a Scholarship to College
Earning a college degree is undoubtedly one of the best ways to find success in the profession you have chosen to pursue. While there are a number of great jobs that you can get that don’t require a college degree, there are still a great many that do.
For instance, anyone looking to follow a career in the healthcare field will most likely need to have either a two-year or a four-year degree before they are eligible to do so. Engineers, educators, and many people who go into the business world must also first earn a degree. That being said, earning a college degree isn’t the cheapest thing you will ever do.
Most degrees from four-year universities can range in cost from around $18,000 per year to over $50,000 per year. This amount will largely depend on the type of school you attend and whether or not you are a resident of the state in which it is located. Thankfully, there are a number of ways to make affording college much easier. One such way is to obtain a scholarship.
Here are three ways in which you can earn a scholarship to the school of your choosing.
- Athletics
If you are an athlete and are competitive and proficient in your sport, you might be able to earn an athletic scholarship. There are athletic scholarships up for grabs at most universities and practically any sport you can think of. While not every athlete will be granted a full-ride scholarship, there are plenty of partial scholarships that are available. These can greatly reduce the amount that you would have to pay for your degree.
Whether you play football, tennis or are interested in track and field scholarships, you should be able to find a program that is looking for student-athletes just like you. Just make sure that you demonstrate a positive and proactive work ethic for your sport and that you take care to maintain your grades.
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- Academic from a School
If you aren’t exactly an athlete, there are still ways of earning scholarships. One of the most common ways is for a university to offer a student a scholarship based on the merit of their grades. Most schools have a tier system, if you will, where students who have a certain GPA will be offered one amount, with those who earn higher GPAs being granted even more scholarship money.
- Merit from a Third-Party Organization
Aside from the scholarships that schools offer incoming freshmen, there are also organizations out there that offer grade and merit-based scholarships to students. Such scholarships can generally be applied to any school that the student wishes to attend. Among some of the most well-known organizations that do this is the National Merit Scholarship Corporation.
Other organizations that offer such scholarships are smaller in size as well as gift amount. However, many students compile a variety of these scholarships in order to alleviate the cost of going to college.