Unclaimed Scholarships can be Public or Private
College can be a fun time for students, but paying for it can be a hassle. Luckily, there are many unclaimed scholarships that can be collected to help offset the staggering price of college tuition – you just have to find them thats’s all. Unclaimed college scholarships are simply scholarships that either aren’t well known enough to be claimed, or are too specific to be claimed by large amounts of people. Unclaimed scholarships are a great source of college money as they oftentimes are quite easy to claim, but the only hard part is finding them in the first place. Many of these unclaimed scholarships are very specific and target only a small portion of the general population, and they often aren’t advertised or marketed as heavily as the more popular scholarships. This makes them harder to find, but if you do get lucky and find an unclaimed scholarship, it should be fairly easy to obtain the funds.
Unclaimed scholarships make up a small part of the scholarships available in the United States. These nameless scholarships do pose one overarching problem for many students: they are hard to find and many of them aren’t well known in the sphere of scholarships. It is well known that many unclaimed scholarships are actually more myth than reality, and many have very high requirements that most people can’t fulfill. You may be more apt to stumble upon them when searching for random scholarships then actually finding them yourself. A good rule of thumb is: the harder you look for scholarships the more likely you will uncover an unclaimed scholarship. Here’s a little help to get you started.
PUBLIC SCHOLARSHIPS
There are two types of scholarships, and the main type is a public scholarship. This is a scholarship that is open to the public and available to any student that meets its requirements. Public scholarships provide partial or full funding for undergraduate or graduate studies. Many of these have very complex application processes and often require essays in addition to questions that need to be answered. Factors that can impact your eligibility for these scholarships include your grades, your GPA, your extracurricular activities, your leadership abilities, any jobs you’ve had, in addition to what you do in your free time. The College Board provides up to one hundred and twenty college scholarships each year that are fully paid. This means the scholarship covers every aspect of college from tuition to room to board, for four full years. There are other companies that sponsor scholarships. Many of these companies are in the automotive, pharmaceutical, and retail industries. Public scholarships rarely go unclaimed, but if you’re pursing a major in a “rare” field or a field that isn’t often studied, you should be able to find quite a few scholarships that have gone unclaimed.
PRIVATE SCHOLARSHIPS
Private scholarships provide full or partial tuition reimbursement but are available only to select students. Private scholarships have the advantage of being able to set their own requirements, meaning they could be available only to African Americans or only for people that are left handed. Some workplaces also offer scholarships to children of their employees as part of the educational workplace opportunity but are not open to the public. Other sources of private scholarships include civic associations, clubs, groups, churches and other community organizations. Many private scholarships have special criteria, such as being a minority or being in a certain geographic location. You can find many unclaimed scholarships in the private catagory because it may just take inquiring about a scholarship that will allow you to get it. It could be as simple as that.
FINDING UNCLAIMED SCHOLARSHIPS
Unclaimed scholarships can be hard to find because they are usually generalized and only available for a few select students but you may randomly run across them in your scholarship search. There are a few ways to find these unacknowledged scholarships, but the most popular option include is to speak with a guidance counselor at your high school. These counselors usually have inside information that helps you find unspecified scholarships. Remember the more agressive you are in your scholarship pursuit the more inclined you are to uncover an unclaimed college scholarship.
Below are some more options for finding unclaimed scholarships:
• Parents or guardians – Ask your parents if their employers have any unnamed scholarships available. Oftentimes, these undisclosed scholarships will go unnoticed because they aren’t given much publicity and often are hidden from the general public.
• Library – Your local library is a great place to find information on unknown scholarships. Often, the librarian will have information that will prove very valuable.
• Oftentimes, the financial aid office of the college that you’re applying to will be able to assist you in finding unidentified scholarships.
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