There are tons of scholarships and grants available for college. I could write volumes about this, but these days, it’s easy to find scholarships… A google search!
Foundation grants are specific to certain areas of interest. Most will bear on the career choice or major of the student. Some are related to certain ethnicity or place of residency. Either way, google searches that pertain to your student’s major should be done separately from a google search for ethnicity. For example, Davi, my foreign exchange student is black, and wants to study architecture. So I googled “african american scholarships” and came up with lots of results. I also googled “minority scholarships” and came up with more.
Next I googled “architecture scholarships” and came up with a number of them specifically earmarked for that field of interest. This is one of them, which is actually a very useful site for researching any kind of scholarship:
http://www.collegescholarships.org/scholarships/architecture.htm
Read carefully through the requirements and exclusions. If your student fits every bit of criteria listed, you can apply and should. Some are for 2nd, 3rd or 4th year of study. So applying for grants and scholarships can be ongoing through college.
Corporate grants can be very specific in terms or major, or may be general scholarships based on being related to someone who worked for the corporation. For example, think of relatives who have worked for a certain company for many years. Even if the relative has retired, there may be grants designated for children or grandchildren of their employees past or present. The grants may be specific to a major or not. Walmart has a general scholarship for children of employees: http://www.scholarships.com/financial-aid/college-scholarships/scholarships-by-type/corporate-scholarships/walton-family-foundation-scholarship.aspx And a different one for students who are employees: http://www.scholarships.com/financial-aid/college-scholarships/scholarships-by-type/corporate-scholarships/walmart-higher-reach-scholarship.aspx
Some corporations offer scholarships for anyone pursuing a major in their industry, set up through a foundation. For example, if the company is a drug company, the scholarships may only be for those studying the medical field, like Bayer Foundations: http://www.bayer-foundations.com/en/homepage.aspx. Or Warner Brothers Hanna Barbara has a $10,000 scholarship for anyone studying animation. This one, like many corporate grants has nothing to do with relative employees, but has everything to do with the major. http://www.awn.com/news/education-and-training/wb-animation-creates-scholarship-honoring-bill-hanna-joseph-barbera
Here’s an informative page on some corporate grants, and great website for researching grants of any kind: http://www.scholarships.com/financial-aid/college-scholarships/scholarships-by-type/corporate-scholarships/corporate-scholarships.aspx
Government grants: Again, google search. Check your city, county, state, etc.
Lots of google searches using different keywords can turn up many opportunities.
There’s a good discussion taking place on our message board.
Along with lots of other good pieces of insight, someone mentioned the CLEP exams, basically what we call “testing out”. This is a great way to save money! And we all love that! Share your ideas, and let’s put our heads together to come up with money to send our kids to college!