More often then naught, scholarships go to waste

Lawrence Jiles/Contributing Writer

Each year, millions of scholarship dollars go unclaimed. A major contributor to this is the common belief among current and prospective University students that, just because the scholarship has little criteria to be fulfilled, the competition will be overwhelming and they won’t stand a chance.

My mother, who works as a Student Support Services (SSS) coordinator at Florida Gulf Coast University, shared a story with me about a male college student that received a scholarship for single mothers. This particular student was in need of any form of financial aid he could find, so he began a boundless search.

The scholarship only asked for a 300 word essay about why he should receive the award. Just four months later, he received a letter in the mail congratulating him: he’d won $5000 for being a ‘single mother.’

Listening to a student complain about not having enough money for college and then seeing them do absolutely nothing to take advantage of the many easily-achieved scholarships available online is pretty disappointing. It’s our responsibility as students and as adults to work hard for the things we deserve.

There are so many scholarships such as the one for single mothers out there that are easy, if not easier than that, to fill out.

Consider the advantage: if it takes you an hour to make $5000, by simply writing a page-long essay, imagine how much harder you would have to work in a real job to earn the same amount.

It is absolute nonsense for any student to complain that they do not have enough financial aid to get them through college if they aren’t doing the necessary research to find more; and equally absurd to pass up on an opportunity out of fear for what he competition might be.