Applying for Weird and Out-of-the-ordinary Scholarships

When it comes to a single scholarship, $500 may not seem like much compared to a $10,000 scholarship to the typical high school student. And with college debt continuing to increase, scholarships seem to be losing their significance. However, at East some students feel like applying for scholarships could diminish some of the tuition damage left behind after college.

Principal Karl Krawitz thinks that a large percentage of East students don’t take advantage of scholarship or grant opportunities that are offered.

“Some students say, ‘well it’s not a lot of money,’ and so I say to them ‘in the big scheme of things it’s not, but let’s just stop and think about this,’” Dr. Krawitz said. “’Say you get a scholarship–for the 15 to 20 minutes it takes to fill out the application, you’ll never have a job the rest of your life that’s gonna pay you $1,000 bucks in 15 to 20 minutes.’”

This year senior Atiyeh Samadi is planning to apply for multiple scholarships pertaining to women of Persian background because she feels the pool of applicants is smaller and that she’ll have a better chance of being awarded one.

“I’m applying for merit based scholarships at all of the schools I’m applying to,” Samadi said. “And I think [applying for scholarships] is something every college-bound senior should take advantage of because it has the potential to lighten the financial load.”

According to the non-profit organization Project on Student Debt, 67 percent of college graduates had debt from paying for their education. They also have concluded that student loan debt is growing at a rate of  $2,853.88 per second and the Federal Reserve Bank in New York states that the debt will surpass 100 billion by the end of this year.

Dr. Krawitz thinks that there are similarities between credit card debt and college tuition debt and that students can prevent this by utilizing resources they have access to.

“With credit cards we use and have to pay for it, with scholarships somebody is giving you money,” Dr. Krawitz said. “So why is the college debt greater than credit card debt when you’ve got so many annuities out there that want to pay for your college?”

The local scholarships are ignored because students continue to think that a couple hundred dollars here and there won’t be enough in the long run.

Senior Tori Holt is applying for the Kelly Lutz Memorial Scholarship which is a four year renewable scholarship for one who has lost a parent to cancer before they are 22. She also plans on applying for a scholarship to the University of Arkansas or Truman State.

“I think scholarships are very important because college is very expensive and any little bit of money helps,” Holt said. “Without scholarships it would be very difficult for some people to afford college, and it is great that with scholarships people can go.”

Samadi and Holt both agree that the main benefit of applying for a lot of scholarships is that you never have to pay the money back.

“Even if you’re going to good ole’ KU up here, you’re going to pay for over four years in tuition, board and books–minimum $50,000,” Dr. Krawitz said. “I don’t think there’s too many people even attending this school, that could sit down and write a check and take care of that.”

In addition to merit, local and regional scholarships there are an array of scholarships pertaining to fields of study like business or law you can apply for. But there are also obscure scholarships like the Potato Industry Scholarship which awards $2,000 to two high school seniors who are going into a field of study related to potatoes and the Vegetarian Resource Group Scholarship which awards $10,000 to a high school student that has promoted vegetarianism in their school.

If you have the last name Van Valkenburg, you can attain $1,000 from the Van Valkenburg Memorial Scholarship. There is even a scholarship for the art of candy making. The American Association of Candy Technologists awards $10,000 to high school students interested in confectionery technology.

Dr. Krawitz doesn’t see the hurt in taking advantage of applying for as many scholarships as possible, even the weird ones. Though it’s the simple ones, he says, students look over.

“There are so many websites available that you can go to to get scholarships to pay for your education,” Dr. Krawitz said. “Students are so good at technology yet they miss the ones that are right under their nose.”