Are you interested in going to college but don’t want to pay thousands of dollars? Then you’ll like the idea of scholarships! Scholarships are money that are given to people for free for accomplishing things. Some things you can do to earn a scholarship are that you can be in a minority group of people and can write about the topic. These scholarships are given out from either private corporations or public entities. Most of the time, you would ask your guidance counselor for scholarships.

There are lots of scholarships and they come in a variety of forms. Some come from the school itself, if you are in the honors program at a college, or if they give them out by meeting a certain criteria. For example, University of Florida is doing a scholarship for the class of 2022 if you are in the top ten for class rank in high school called the UNF Commitment Scholarship. Class ranks 1-5 gets $6000+ a year for tuition and class ranks 6-10 gets $3000 a year for tuition. Other Scholarships UNF give out are the Jacksonville Commitment Scholarship where you must be a Florida resident, a Duval High School Graduate, and other criteria that can be found on the UNF website. If you aren’t going to UNF then you can use the College Board Opportunity Scholarship where you can complete a journey and at the end you can get up to $40,000 in scholarships.

Another way of getting scholarships come in the form of the FAFSA (Free Application for Federal Student Aid) for financial aid. Most of the time, scholarships will ask you that you need to complete the FAFSA before you can receive the scholarships. Others will use the FFAA (Florida Financial Aid Application) for some Florida scholarships such as Bright Futures, Scholarship for Children and Spouses of Deceased or Disabled Veterans.

However you decide to get scholarships, they are useful towards being college debt free and still being able to get your degree in the field you choose.