2023-2024 Scholarship Bulletin

A scholarship is an award of financial aid for a student to further education. Scholarships are awarded on various criteria usually reflecting the values and purposes of the donor or founder of the award.

The most common scholarships may be classified as:

• Merit-based: These awards are based on a student’s athletic, academic, artistic or other abilities, and often factor in an applicant’s community service record and extracurricular activities. The most common merit-based scholarships, awarded by either private organizations or directly by a student’s intended college, recognize academic achievement or high scores on the ACT and SAT standardized tests.
• Need-based: These awards are based on the student and family’s financial record and will require applicants to fill out a FAFSA to qualify if the scholarship is a federal award. Private need-based scholarships will also often require the results of a FAFSA, which calculates a student’s financial need through a formula looking at the expected family contribution and cost of attendance at the intended college.
• Student-specific: These are scholarships where applicants must initially qualify by race, gender, religion, family and medical history, or many other student-specific factors. Minority scholarships are the most common awards in this category, and not all are based in the United States. For example, students in Canada may qualify for a number of aboriginal scholarships, whether they study at home or abroad.
• Career-specific: These are scholarships awarded by a college or university to students planning to pursue a specific field of study. Often the most generous awards are given to students pursuing careers in high-need areas such as education or nursing. Nursing students are in high demand, and many schools will give future nurses full scholarships to enter the field, especially if the student intends to work in a high-need community.

Some scholarships have a “bond” requirement. Recipients may be required to work for a particular employer for a specified period of time or to work in rural or remote areas; otherwise they may be required to repay the value of the support they received from the scholarship. This is particularly the case with education and nursing scholarships for people prepared to work in rural and remote areas. The programs offered by the uniformed services of the United States (Army, Navy, Marine Corps, Air Force, Coast Guard, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration commissioned corps, and Public Health Service Commissioned Corps).

Fastweb

There is no charge to use the Fastweb service or to access any of the information Fastweb provides. Fastweb is a site that matches the information you enter in your profile to scholarship, college, job and internship opportunities. You may use the information that Fastweb provides to apply for scholarships, discover prospective colleges, explore internship possibilities or learn about part-time jobs in your area.

Latino College Dollars

In 2005, The Walt Disney Company commissioned a TRPI study titled College Scholarships for Latino Students: Are Opportunities Being Missed?, which found that online scholarship information was plentiful but often outdated, not actively disseminated, and in English only.

In November 2006, with funding from The Sallie Mae Fund, The Walt Disney Company, and Southern California Edison, TRPI was able to develop an inaugural scholarship directory that listed all regional organizations that awarded grants and scholarships targeting eligible California Latino students.  At the same time, AT&T funded the creation of the original online directory, which builds on the printed directory and findings of the original TRPI study and provides the most updated information possible.

MALDEF

MALDEF strives to implement programs that are structured to bring Latinos into the mainstream of American political and socio-economic life; providing better educational opportunities; encouraging participation in all aspects of society; and offering a positive vision for the future. Unique to MALDEF is an approach that combines advocacy, educational outreach, and litigation strategies to achieve socio-economic change.

Financial Aid Resources on the Web