While both can help you pay for college, they are very different.

A scholarship is money that you’re given from different organizations like the state, schools, or companies to pay for college with no need to pay it back. Some scholarships are even renewable each year.

A student loan is something you need to pay back eventually, with interest. In fact, if you ever go bankrupt a student loan is one debt that is very rarely forgiven.

Academic scholarships are only one of many scholarships you could apply for! There are needs based scholarships, leadership, athletic, employer, military, and so many more. The goal of the course is to teach you how to get scholarships that work for you based on your skills and situation.

The best scholarships are the ones that apply to you. These are scholarships based on your hobbies, where you’re from, your major and so many other factors. In her course, Wendy goes over the Scholarship Search Order document which if followed helps you have a higher success rate.

Scholarships are available all year round, meaning you can start right now! You can even start looking for scholarships before their applications open to get ahead of the competition.

The best time for a senior in high school would be to start applying at the beginning of their senior year somewhere around October and to continue through April. Some schools assess freshman college scholarships in the first part of December (9 months before college even begins.) 

You can continue to apply for scholarships up until you graduate! It is never too late to start.

Absolutely, that’s what Wendy did! Scholarships aren’t just for high schoolers, many are available for different age groups in different life stages. Many employees offer scholarships for employees to go back and get degrees.

Most scholarships go through your college to pay for your books and tuition. Then whatever money is left over can get put into your bank account. From there you can use that extra money to pay for food, housing, and so much more. One of Wendy’s daughters was able to buy a car to get to her student teaching assignments using the extra scholarship money! The possibilities are endless.

After Wendy’s husband passed away, she went back to college to get her bachelor’s and master’s degrees. She wasn’t sure how she was going to pay for them. It was a scary time for her and her family. However, she was able to use what she learned over the past 20 years concerning scholarships and applied and received enough money to pay for all her expenses for school plus an extra $16,000 in cash.

One of her daughters received $77,000 in scholarships and it was enough for all her college expenses plus a car. Wendy teaches all of these skills in her course so you can do the same.