No it is not. A student is money borrowed for college that you have to pay back. A scholarship is money awarded for some accomplishment, whether athletic, academic or otherwise that does not have to be repaid.
How to Get a Scholarship
There are an endless number of scholarships available for all different types of achievements. Many scholarships have their original basis in academics. They look first at your grade point average or standardized testing scores. Beyond that, however, there are other criteria considered when selecting a student for a scholarship that go way beyond just letter and number grades. Those awarding scholarships look for special projects done, involvement in the community, volunteer work and so many other things. It is impossible to list all that things considered for different scholarships.
Your guidance counselor may be able to give you some direction in finding available scholarships. But don’t stop there. Take the initiative yourself to do a little digging. Go online to see what programs are available that you may qualify for.
Eligibility requirements for scholarship programs range from little of nothing to very extensive. Some require only that you are a U.S. citizen who has received or are receiving your high school diploma. Others have more extensive requirements to be eligible. One of the best ways to find a concise list of scholarship programs currently available and what is needed to apply for them is to visit either CollegeAid.com (collegeaid.com/college-scholarship-search.html) or FastWeb (fastweb.com).
Different scholarship programs are available to different classes of people, people of different nationalities or people from different locations. There are some scholarships available only to military families or children of veterans. Other scholarship programs are available only to children of families of moderate means. The variety of types of scholarships available is almost equal to the variety of people alive today.
Some scholarships are not based on any of the above. They don’t focus on grades or background or anything of that sort. Some require that you write a paper on a specific subject and they judge each of the papers received to see who merits the scholarships. They specify what you will write about and the length of the paper to be written. The scholarship is awarded to the person who writing is chosen as outstanding.
Some scholarships cannot rightly be called free money because there are certain types of scholarships that are taxable. The IRS has specified certain components of scholarships and whether they are subject to taxes.
