According to the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES), students who attend public 4-year universities in the United States spend, on average, $20,598 a year for tuition and other institutional fees.
Additionally, according to a 2017 study from the Federal Reserve, the average student loan debt in the United States is approximately $32,731. As you, alongside every other college student in America, well know, college is expensive. We can knock down some of those out of pocket costs with scholarships.
Most Georgia high school graduates are quite familiar with the H.O.P.E. and Zell Miller Scholarships, but it doesn’t end there. The NCES reported that in 2016 there were approximately 1.5 million scholarships available across the U.S. valued at $6.1 billion.
Starting close to home so to speak, ABAC students can visit abac.edu, select the tab “Funding” and locate the link for the 2021-2022 school year scholarship application. There are multiple foundation scholarships available for new and returning students at ABAC.
In submitting an application, students are applying for all the foundation scholarships available for the school year and eligibility will be determined by the selection committee; applying for each individual scholarship is not necessary. Additional scholarships provided through ABAC, such as the Maria Guadalupe Cervantes Memorial Scholarship and the B. Frank Strickland Scholarship, can also be applied for with separate applications.
Outside of ABAC, hundreds of thousands of scholarships are available to college students across the nation. Each scholarship and organization has varying guidelines, deadlines, and requirements to be considered a scholarship award winner. Many students feel they can’t get scholarships because of a low GPA or because they didn’t participate in sports/clubs, but that’s not the case.
There are many scholarships through companies and charity foundations that often don’t require more than a personal essay. Scholarships like the “Hooked to Books” award $1,000 each year, and only require an essay of 1,000 to 2,000 words.
For students that aren’t comfortable with writing, Marvel Optics, a glasses company, has a scholarship where students must make a one minute video answering the question, “‘The only thing worse than being blind is having sight but no vison.’ What does this mean to you?”
Finally, students that need help financing their mentored research projects, or dreams of studying abroad can get a scholarship through the ABAC Steps program. Students can apply at the beginning of each month.
