Urbana High School Guidance Office publishes a listing of available scholarships.
This listing is produced using the various scholarship opportunities for which
we receive information. Listings include criteria, award amount, and application
deadline. Most scholarship applications are available on line from the group/organziation offering the scholarship; some have pdf or Word documents that we post on this site, and others must be picked up in the UHS Guidance Office. Scholarship information
is presented to student through the daily bulletin and posts on our socia media sites. Counselor Marc Solodky is responsible for compiling this scholarship information.
Our Facebook
page will frequently have additional info on scholarships.
If you wonder what has been offered in the past years (to know what might be coming later this year), check our Scholarships
From Past Years.
Parkland College lists tons of scholarships for students
headed in their direction. Check out Parkland
Scholarships on their site.
University of Illinois also has a plethora of scholarships
they award. Search their Scholarship
Database by program or by scholarship name.
HELP!! How do we go about paying for college?
Fin Aid! is a top-quality
link to many financial aid related sites, ranging from institutions
to government programs to scholarship scam
alerts. This really is an excellent site for anyone looking for money
to go to school. It is an excellent starting point for information.
FAFSA, State and
Federal Student Aid Programs
FAFSA on the Web
is the U.S. Dept. of Education's site for the Free Application for Federal
Student Aid. A PIN (Personal
Identification Number) is needed to complete the online version, and this
should be acquired before you actually sit down to do the FAFSA on the Web.
Submitting the FAFSA online is the preferred method. A very limited number
of paper forms may be available in the guidance office. Online applications
are much more accurate and processed much more rapidly. If you are filing
a federal income tax return, you should complete it before filing the FAFSA.
The FAFSA site has a worksheet that may be downloaded in order to make it
easier to complete the online form. STUDENTS PLANNING TO ENTER COLLEGE IN
THE FALL OF 2013 NEED THE 2013-2014 FAFSA!(This link may open in a
new window.)
Funding
Education Beyond High School: The Guide to Federal Student Aid is a comprehensive
resource on student financial aid from the U.S. Department of Education. Grants,
loans, and work-study are the three major forms of aid available through the
Department's Federal Student Aid office. Funding Education Beyond High School:
The Guide to Federal Student Aid tells you about the programs and how to apply
for them. These publications are in PDF and may be viewed online or printed.
(This link may open in a new window.)
College Zone,the site
of the Illinois Student Assistance Commission (ISAC), will
hook you into their programs and an abundance of resources. This site is focused
on Illinois students and as such it is the only site with a financial aid
calculator that estimates eligibility for the State of Illinois' MAP Grant.
Parkland / U
of I Financial Aid Offices, additional information
Juniors (and their parents) looking for an early start
on the FAFSA process can take advantage of FAFSA4caster.
This web site allows high school juniors to learn about the financial aid
process, gaining early awareness of aid eligibility, and much more. (This
link may open in a new window.)
The US
Dept. of Education has several helpful sites for information targeted
to parents of preschoolers through adult students. The site also has a section
regarding
International Students.When you apply for aid, you'll need Title
IV Schools Codes for the college code numbers. Another government site
which gives information on monetary awards in return for volunteer service
is AmeriCorps (also listed in more
detail on our "Options . . " page).
Tax Breaks for Higher Education
Have you heard about the Tax
Breaks for Higher Education, such as the American Opportunity (formerly "HOPE") Tax Credit and Lifetime
Learning Credits? The University of Illinois Extension service has a good
site which is a guide to the variety of tax breaks available to make higher
education more affordable. It is written in very understandable terms. This
is a good resource, particularly for those middle-income taxpayer families
who may have some college savings and/or find that the only breaks they'll
get on tuition are those coming from a reduction in taxes.
CSS Profile Online
is the online completion site for the CSS/Financial Aid PROFILE®.
This form is sometimes requested by private colleges and universities in order
to get a more complete view of a student's financial need situation. A product
of the College Board, there is a fee for completing this form. A credit card
and a secure browser are needed for online completion.
Minority, International, and
Special Populations Opportunities
The Gates Millennium Scholars Program
promotes academic excellence and to provides an opportunity for outstanding
minority students with significant financial need to reach their highest potential.
This program targets African-American, Hispanic American, American
Indian/Alaska Native and Asian Pacific Islander American students
with high academic and leadership promise who have a significant financial
need. The career areas of education, engineering, library science, mathematics,
public health, and the sciences are the focus of these scholarships.
Black Excel has a very extensive
site with links to HBCU's and lot of information for minority students. One
of their links is their Black
Excel 100 Minority Scholarships Gateway which lists links to many minority
scholarship programs.They have another link called 200
Free Scholarships for Minorities and it lists a number of national scholarships,
scholarship searches, etc. Many of these are NOT limited
to minority students.
The Thurgood Marshall Fund
awards merit-based scholarships to students attending one of 45 historically
black public colleges and universities. In Illinois, Chicago State University
awards Thurgood Marshall Funds. Awards are made by the institution after the
student has been accepted.
The UNCF (United Negro College Fund) has
a nice searchable database of scholarship opportunities for African-American
students. From their main page, click on "For Students" and then
select "Scholarships" from the drop-down menu.
The Illinois Dream Fund provides scholarships for undocumented students. This is an exciting new opportunity for undocumented students who are not eligible for scholarships that require US citizenship.
Scholarship Spotlight has a nice listing of scholarships for undocumented student scholarships. They also have a very helpful "resources" area that explains scholarships and financial aid and give tips and help for those applying.
The Hispanic Scholarship Fund is another
gateway to potential funding for Hispanic students. This is a very nice site,
listing scholarships for students who are presently seniors in high school
as well as many for students who are already in college. (en
español)
The Mexican
American Legal Defense and Educational Fund (MALDEF) has a very good Undergraduate
Scholarship Resource Guide. This guide includes many private scholarships
that are available to students regardless of immigration status.
This organization is from California, so there are some scholarships listed
that would not be available to non-California students. The site in general
is full of good information for Latinos.
The Congressional Hispanic Caucus
Institute has its own scholarship program, as well as a national directory
of scholarships for Latino youth. That publication can be downloaded from
their web site.
International students can find a good information about studying in the USA at eduPASS, the SmartStudent Guide to Studying in the US.
Are you: Female? Disabled? LGBT? Undocumented? Jewish? Cancer Survivor?
International? Athlete? The FinAid site's section on "Other
Types of Aid" has an extensive listing of scholarships and other aid available
based on the student being a member of some special, "focused" population.
These special pops include groups based on gender (women LGBT), service (volunteer,
gov't service), nationality, intended major, athletics, religion , etc. This
also lists additional means of making the task of paying for college a little
less painful (installment payment plans, tax credits, and so on).
Financial
Aid/College Cost Estimators and Calculators
Several organizations offer parents and students the tools to estimate their
college costs, the expected family contribution (EFC) and capacity for debt.
We provide links to a few of these, and all are free and anonymous.
ISAC's
College Zone has a state and federal aid estimator which calculates what
you might be eligible for from both sources. This is an excellent place to
start if you are an Illinois resident and plan to attend an Illinois school.
This is the only web-based calculator that will calculate for the MAP Grant.
MAP is an Illinois program for Illinois students and is based on Expected
Family Contribution (EFC).
FinAid: The Financial Aid Information
Page provides custom calculators which can help you figure out how much
school will cost, how much you need to save, and how much aid you'll need.
This page has lots of good information.
Student
Loan Calculator/College Savings Calculator from MortgageLoan.com has an
interactive calculator. You enter different variables and it gives you the
numbers of how much you'll end up with after a certain span of time.
FREE Scholarship Searches
NOTE: These sites are all free, though they do have sponsors/advertisers
who may get user information for marketing purposes. Sites usually state
what their policy on this is and may give the user a choice of releasing
their information or keeping it private. Consider opting out of their
receiving communications from the sites's "partner companies."
While each site offers similar information, they are each unique and results
will vary. A student who is serious about finding as many scholarship
sources as possible would be wise to register with several of these. DO
NOT pay private companies to do this searching for you when you can do
it here for free! Results are emailed to the student. If the student has
no email account, one can be easily established through such sites as
Google/Gmail (www.gmail.com), Hotmail (www.hotmail.com), Yahoo! (www.yahoo.com),
and others. Students should also be sure to check for scholarship information
in the school guidance office.
At no cost, these sites do searches similar to those done by private search
companies' offerings that cost from $10 to hundreds of dollars. Remember:
You don't pay money to get money! Beware of offers that sound "too
good to be true." These may be scams. See our scam info at the bottom
of this page.
College Answer, is
a great site with a useful scholarship search service to help students pay
for their education. College Answer is part of the Sallie Mae financial
services group and they do not share your info with third parties. The "Scholarship
Search" button is on the right. They have a good parent resource section.
nelnet is an education planning and
financing company, the parent company of Peterson's. Their site is packed
with information aimed at planning for college. This is a good site for
answering questions and helping users sort through different options, as
well as linking to a good scholarship search. Their free search is located
under "Finance Your Education" on their home page. They even have
a specific listing of scholarships for international students.
fastWEB should be a sure stop on
your search for financial aid. This is the "most famous" of the
free scholarship search sites. They do share some information with advertisers.
Consider how you answer the questions related to that fact.
Schoolsoup is another very good
database of scholarship information. This is a commercial site, so they
are, of course, trying to sell some services through their site, but they
have a lot of good free information.
Search a Scholarship Database Based on College Major
Search for scholarships by college major. Click on your intended field of study and get a list
of scholarships. This can be a helpful way to look for money. Of course,
many of the scholarships are school-specific monies. This link will open
in a new window.
College
Illinois! and Bright Start-- State of Illinois College Programs
The State of Illinois has two programs for helping families plan for college
expenses. These and other Section 529 plans are explained and linked
on our "Planning for College" page. Even if a
student is almost ready for or already in college, it's worth a visit to this
page.
Scholarship Scams
"Is this a scam?" We get frequent calls from parents wondering if
the scholarship search service that sent them mailings is "for real." Consumers
should be very skeptical of these services, as they are usually not worth
the money. (This is especially true with all the free Internet searches available
and the resources such as those listed on this page.) The Federal
Trade Commission's Scholarship Scam site targets the fee-based scholarship
search services. Not only does it give the typical things to look for as signs
of a rip-off, but it also lists companies which have engaged in these practices
in the past and frequently change names or addresses. It's a very user-friendly
site.
Fin Aid! is a top-quality
link to many financial aid related sites, ranging from institutions
to government programs to scholarship scam
alerts. This really is an excellent site for anyone looking for money
to go to school.
How do I write a scholarship essay?
A site offering guidance on essays is AcademicTips.org.
Their site offers step-by-step advice. FinAid!
Essay help is similar, with more good advice.
Many scholarships require applicants to write an essay.
Do you need help on that? Check ScholarshipHelp.org.
This is a non-commercial site dedicated to helping scholarship applicants.
The site has a huge amount of information on locating and applying for scholarships,
as well as some very easily-understood explanations of other types of aid.
FinancialAidTips.org is
a site similar to the one above. Again, it is non-commercial which means they're
not trying to get you to pay for any of their advice or services.
