Scholarships: Where to Find Them and How to Win Them

Outside scholarships are one of the best ways to fund your education. Billions of dollars in scholarship and grant money go out every year — and millions more go unawarded because not enough students apply. If you want a real shot at attending college debt-free, you need to get deep in your bag and apply to as many as you reasonably can.

Don't get discouraged, and don't stop applying. I applied to around 40 scholarships and won 9 — and those 9 covered my full cost of attendance. You don't need the highest GPA in your class or to be the best athlete in your city. There are scholarships out there for every kind of student. Here's where to start.

Online Scholarship Resources

• College Board Opportunity Scholarships

  Win chances (including a $40,000 scholarship) just for completing tasks you'd normally do anyway — building a college list on BigFuture, practicing for the SAT on Khan Academy, improving your score, completing the FAFSA, and applying to college. Also runs the BigFuture Scholarship Search with 2,200+ programs.

• Scholarships.com

  A free search engine tracking $19B+ in scholarships. Build a profile and get matched, or search the full directory yourself.

• Fastweb

  Free access to 1.5M+ scholarships totaling $3.4B+ in funding, matched to your profile.

• Thurgood Marshall College Fund (TMCF)

  Merit and need-based scholarships for students at 47 member HBCUs. This is where I won my biggest scholarship — the process was straightforward and well worth applying to if you're HBCU-bound.

• HBCU Week Foundation

  College fairs, scholarships, and internships for HBCU-bound students, in partnership with companies like the NFL and Capital One.

• United Negro College Fund (UNCF)

  Awards $100M+ a year to students at 1,100+ schools, plus internship and fellowship opportunities.

• Niche

  Scholarship search alongside its well-known college-search tool.

• Chegg

  25,000+ scholarship opportunities, plus tutoring help for writing your applications.

• Your target college's own website

  Once you know where you're applying, check the school's financial aid page directly — most list merit, departmental, endowment, and alumni scholarships you won't find anywhere else.

How to Find Local Scholarships

Local scholarships have far fewer applicants than national ones — sometimes as few as "you attended this specific high school" or "you're a member of this local organization." Fewer applicants means dramatically better odds.

• Ask your counselor and teachers. My high school counselor kept a running Google Sheet of local opportunities that I checked constantly. Even without a full list, they usually know a few local businesses or organizations that offer scholarships.
• Use online resources. Most of the search engines above let you filter by state. Plain Google searches work too — try "[your city or area code] scholarships."
• Search social media. Small businesses post scholarship announcements on Instagram and X/Twitter. Try searching your city or area code plus "scholarships" — for example, "Hampton scholarships," "757 scholarships," or "Virginia scholarships."
• Ask your parents' employers. Some companies offer scholarships for employees' children.
• Check local community and cultural centers. They often know about scholarships that never make it onto national databases.
• Ask religious centers. Some churches, mosques, synagogues, and similar organizations offer scholarships for their members.

A Starter Scholarship Bulletin

A handful of major, ongoing national programs worth building into your list — this isn't exhaustive, and every one of these updates its deadlines and eligibility yearly, so treat it as a starting point, not the finish line.

More Scholarships to Explore

Beyond the major national programs above, here's a wider starter list — pulled from my own personal scholarship-application spreadsheet from my senior year. Amounts, essay requirements, and deadlines shift every cycle, so use the official link to confirm current details before you apply, not the numbers below.