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If you are a high school student considering college, chances are you also have questions about scholarships. This probably has a lot to do with the fact that the cost of college has increased by nearly 37% over the past 15 years, with the average price of tuition being $38,000 per year—that is, unless you have some type of help or financial aid. So, do you stand any chance of getting a scholarship? What exactly is a scholarship? Who provides them? How do you apply for one?

Let’s start with the basics.

What are scholarships?

Scholarships are essentially gifts or free financial aid designed to help qualifying students pay for postsecondary education. They are financial assistance that students and their families do not have to pay back. For the most part, scholarships are awarded based on merit (academic, athletic, or skills/abilities), need (financial or other special needs), or demographics (race, gender, or ethnicity).

The latest research estimates that around 1.5-1.8 million scholarships are awarded to U.S. students each year. Many scholarships come in the form of needs-based aid issued by the federal government. These are called Pell Grants, which are largely for students from lower-income families. Nearly $40 billion is issued via Pell Grants annually. (More on Pell Grants below.)

Another $8–$10 billion in scholarships is merit or demographic-based, and is provided by colleges, businesses, local governments, non-profits, foundations, churches, and even private individuals.

Despite these numbers, applying for a scholarship can feel daunting. And the truth is, a relatively small number of students (estimated to be around only 10%) obtain scholarship money from non-Pell merit or demographic sources.

Who provides scholarships?

Any individual or any type of organization—business, a college, a government, a non-profit, a family foundation, a community-based organization, etc. can provide a scholarship. This means that the types of scholarships are highly varied, which might explain why it is a struggle to know how to land one.
Here’s a quick review of the major sources.

• The Federal Pell Program - The first source you will likely encounter is the Pell Grant Program, mentioned earlier. These funds are available for undergraduates “who display exceptional financial needs.” To apply for a Pell Grant, students must fill out a free application for federal student aid (FAFSA). For the most part, Pell Grants do not need to be repaid. The amount you can receive varies based on a student’s financial need and background and whether they are full-time or not. The maximum amount a student can receive is around $7,000 per academic year.
• Colleges and Universities - Another likely provider is the college or university you are interested in. According to the National Center for Education Statistics, higher ed-based scholarships are “outright grants-in-aid, trainee stipends, tuition and fee waivers, and prizes awarded by the institution, including Pell grants.” Some of these scholarships are state-based, especially if the college you are applying to is a state college or university. Colleges can also have their own scholarships that award students based on academics, athletics, or achievement in areas like music or engineering.
• State Government - State-based scholarships can be issued by organizations like the state department of education, labor, or even commerce. They also generally fund students based on merit, need, and demographic considerations. The Education Data Initiative has compiled a list of state-based scholarships if you would like to learn more.
• Corporate (or Business-Based) Scholarships - Businesses and their associated foundations fund numerous scholarships each year. In many cases, successful businesses have established separate foundations just to help administer scholarships with the hope that more students will pursue particular fields of study. Some of the more well-known corporate scholarships are the Dell Scholars Program, Amazon Future Engineer Scholarship, Coca Cola Scholars Program, and Microsoft Imagine Cup. Numerous fast-food chains (i.e. McDonalds, Burger King, and Taco Bell) offer large scholarships as well.

In addition, a huge number of professional, community-based, and religious organizations, not to mention family foundations, issue scholarships.

How should you start your scholarship?

Here’s a few good rules of thumb. Start with a simple checklist. This can help you narrow in on scholarships that are a better fit.

For instance, think about the following:

• Interests. Do you plan to go into engineering, healthcare, the arts, or business? Narrowing down your interests will help you find scholarships that support related activities.
• Location. Do you plan on staying in the state? If so, there are a good handful of state-based opportunities to consider.
• Need. If you come from a lower-income background or have significant financial needs, you will likely be able to get some money from state or federal grants.
• Abilities. Do you have good grades? Have you done well on standardized tests? Have you developed unique and outstanding abilities in athletics, the arts, or a specific career-oriented field (especially STEM)? If so, there are a lot of different scholarship possibilities based on your merit.
• Demographics. If you are a minority, there are many scholarships that are looking to support you.

Next, you should also gather or create the following. Pretty much every scholarship requires these items.

• Background on your school, GPA, and transcript. This one is obvious. Have all of your academic records ready to share.
• Tax forms. Scholarships often require you to know your family’s household income.
• Recommendations. Think about people in your life—teachers, employers, coaches—who would be willing to recommend you and can vouch for your work and character.
• Honors and awards. Have a list of honors you’ve achieved, and be sure that they are able to be independently verified. In this case, have the actual document handy.
• Resume. If you haven’t yet, now is a good time to create a resume.
• Essays. Most scholarships want you to write about your background, interests, and aspirations. While you might not need to write these until you are filling out the application, be ready to produce them. (Do not use AI in your compositions. Reviewers are savvy enough to know when the writing has been produced by a bot instead of a real person. They also employ AI detection tools in their essay reviews.)

How to increase your chances…

And here is one more checklist to follow if you want to increase your chances when you start applying. Show that your college education is worth investing in!

• Grades. Obviously, maintaining good grades is a good idea if you want to win any type of scholarship. Remember, the people giving out the awards want to know that you are a serious student and will have a high chance of succeeding if they grant you a scholarship. In most cases, the funders view the scholarship as an investment in the development of people who will be highly productive.
• Participate in school and community activities. Beyond doing your schoolwork, be well-rounded. This means taking an active role in things like sports, clubs, career and technical student organizations, and other extracurricular activities.
• Start early and set aside time to work on your scholarship search and application. Most students delay their scholarship search until they get accepted into college. This can work, but we recommend that you research and even apply for scholarships years prior—as early as 8th or 9th grade. Not only could you take advantage of scholarships for high school students, but you could also use your high school years to figure out which college-level scholarships make the most sense to pursue. (Carson Scholars awards students $1,000 a year as early as 4th grade. The idea here is that parents can use the scholarship to put money in the bank for their child’s future education.) Bottom line, the best advice here is to set aside time to pursue scholarships early. As with many things, you get back what you put in.

Also, it is a good idea to avoid the easy scholarships that generally do not require you to write anything or to provide much background or statements about your interests. These usually don’t provide much funding and might be scam offers simply trying to harvest your contact information (or worse!).

When should you apply for college scholarships?

In general, junior year of high school is the best time to apply for college scholarships. You should also check with your high school about what opportunities they are hearing about and when applications open for submissions. In many cases, scholarship providers will share information with schools with the hope that more students hear about their opportunities.

For the most part, applications open around the beginning of a school year (September/October) and run through the spring (April/May). In some cases, you have to apply for a scholarship a year in advance. So, if you want to win a scholarship when you are in your senior year of high school, you should be working on applications in the fall and spring semesters of your junior year.

Again, you can and probably should start to get familiar with scholarships as early as your freshman and sophomore years. Basically, use your early high school years to familiarize yourself with the available scholarships, and learn what you need to do to apply.

How do I find scholarships?

Beyond Pell Grants and state-based scholarships, which are easy to find with simple online searches, most scholarships are housed on scholarship search engines. This is why Futures is pleased to announce the launch of a new scholarship portal. We have partnered with Scholarship America, FIRST, and a number of universities to bring you millions of dollars in scholarship opportunities.

• Create an account (it takes less than 2 m
• inutes).
• Click the Find Scholarships tab.
• Use filters to find the best opportunities for you (filter by location, amount, and grade level).
• Save your favorites (you must have an account to save) and we’ll notify you via email as your saved scholarships open and close.
• Come back often to check out new opportunities.

Happy searching and good luck!
 

Pearson Futures and FIRST® have partnered to help high school students find and access the scholarships they can use to secure the academic programs that will help them land promising STEM careers.

SEMI is the major industry association for the microelectronics industry. It represents over 3,000 high-tech businesses focused on creating a broad range of electronic products that we use and depend on every day. Microelectronics are the tiny computers and silicon chips (also known as semiconductors) found in ubiquitous items like phones, watches, cars, laptops, really any piece of electronic equipment you can think of. The semiconductor is essentially the brain of the device.

One of SEMI’s goals is to help electronics manufacturers and businesses develop the next generation of talent. Demand for microelectronics is massive, which means the industry offers numerous career opportunities for young people. The key is to help a new generation of talent learn about these many and varied careers, and to put young jobseekers in touch with the resources they can use to get a meaningful start.

Why it matters

Investments in the domestic production of microelectronics have grown tremendously over the past few years, indicating that many businesses in this sector are in dire need of talent of almost every conceivable type: engineering, production, construction, distribution, business operations, and more. Every major industry sector you can think of—from tech to communications to healthcare to the military to transportation to energy to manufacturing—needs LOTS of microelectronics.

Many of these businesses also realize that today’s junior high, high school, and college students are not aware of either the high demand for new talent or the varied and interesting types of work within the industry. So they are working hard to get in front of young people and raise awareness of these jobs.To get started, check out SEMI’s career site. There you will find:

• Information about the many careers you can pursue
• Interest assessments to see whether you’re a good match for any of those careers
• Skills surveys to see what skills you need
• Educational opportunities to build your knowledge and skills
• Apprenticeships to build work experience

Who are high school students turning to for guidance?

We can all remember that time in high school when the future felt blurry and like an ever-moving target. And what was true for previous generations is now even more true for Gen Z, given the incredible amount of technological, cultural, social, and economic upheaval they’ve experienced since 2020. Further, in a world where the internet plays such a substantial role, the vast sea of information can often make decisions tougher. ‘Who do I ask for help?’ is now a question with a million answers. 

To better understand how today’s students feel about their post high school life, we surveyed Connections Academy students. Perhaps most interestingly, Gen Z, the generation with the greatest exposure to the greatest wealth of technology the world has ever seen, is still completely reliant on their parents for guidance about the future. And for all the current popularity of AI, it plays virtually no role in how students are making decisions. 

For instance, when it comes to making choices about college, 85% of the students we asked said that they rely primarily on mom and dad. The next closest answer percentage-wise was ‘other family members’ at 46%. Only 25% said that they would turn to social media. 

Of course, the internet still plays a role: 42% of students said they use online sources and other forms of online education for help making college choices. But familial relationships had the clear priority, and digital or more remote sources were only a secondary source.

You don’t need a crystal ball to know that high school students entering the workforce over the next few years are facing an uphill battle. They’re living through constant upheaval and change—change driven by technology, by generational turnover, and by a heaving sea of economic, political, and cultural forces that can feel, even to seasoned adults, like a perfect storm. Add to that mix the internet, and everything is amplified by ten—the good, the bad, and the confusing. Students are now faced with more choices than ever, along with a million competing voices. It’s enough to give anyone decision fatigue. Or downright paralysis.

Last year, we asked over 1,000 HR leaders and hiring managers what types of jobs are hardest to fill and 37% said that they struggle most with hiring those who are just getting started in the labor market. To put that in perspective, according to these business leaders, entry level talent is actually harder for them to find than executive level talent.

When it comes to finding your dream job or getting a job at your ideal company, what do you wish you knew?

That’s the question we asked students in a survey conducted in August 2023. The overwhelming need-to-know item wasn’t college advice or career options, but skills. What skills should I develop? What skills are employers looking for? What abilities, knowledge, and experience do businesses want to hire?

According to another study conducted by Pearson, the top five skills desired by businesses are human skills (aka soft skills)—relational skills that help us forge connections with colleagues and customers. LinkedIn reported similar findings in their 2024 Most In-Demand Skills list, where the majority of the top 10 skills of today are human skills.

Employees with strong human skills tend to understand others’ needs and problems, communicate excellently, adapt and innovate well, and make good team players. So it is no wonder businesses want to hire people with such strengths.

What about hard skills? Aren’t they still important? While hard (or technical) skills remain vital, it is classic skills such as communication, leadership, and collaboration that form the necessary foundation for technical skills to rest upon. If a software developer can write code in five languages but can’t communicate well with management or collaborate with others, they are of considerably less value to their company. And in recent times, it appears that human skills are the commodity in short supply. Thus the demand is skyrocketing.

In this article, we will look at the top five desired skills and discuss how students and jobseekers can develop them early in the game—before they go off to college or land a “real” job, or even before they leave the house. We will also look at some of the fastest-growing, high-demand technical skills that can be added on top of the foundation of human skills.

The Partnership

Certiport is a global leader in entry level training and certification courses geared towards in-demand tech skills that businesses are looking for. Since 1997 Certiport has developed both a wide array of curriculum as well as industry-recognized certifications and now administers millions of exams each year in countries around the world.

Their courses include training in software like the Microsoft Office suite, Adobe, and Apple’s Swift programming language. With Certiport, high school students gain sought-after skills in project management, accounting, IT, business, and more that will help them connect to whatever opportunities they’d like to pursue.

In addition to training, Certiport hosts global competitions that offer a unique, gamified approach to career learning. In these competitions students can win scholarships and prizes, and gain incredible proficiency in Microsoft and Adobe. 

The Partnership

Pearson has partnered with Future Business Leaders of America (FBLA) in order to prepare students to become leaders in whatever career path they choose. Through this partnership, students as early as middle school will gain the experience, mindset, and skills they need in order to thrive as community-minded business leaders in a global society.

About FBLA

Developed in 1937, FBLA believes in more than simple career success. FBLA believes that every person should prepare for a meaningful career  and to go about that work in a manner that helps to lift up their own families, the people around them, and society as a whole.Developed in 1937, FBLA believes in more than simple career success. FBLA believes that every person should prepare for a meaningful career  and to go about that work in a manner that helps to lift up their own families, the people around them, and society as a whole.

How this partnership helps you

It’s not too early to start thinking about how to be a leader in whatever field (or fields) you choose to pursue. Want to become the kind of person that your coworkers or employees are inspired to imitate?

The Pearson-FBLA partnership will help you learn what you need to know. Through FBLA’s programs, you will:

• Develop competent business leadership
• Understand American business enterprise
• Develop projects that improve home, business, and community
• Develop your character
• Learn efficient money-management
• Transition smoothly from school to work with FBLA’s help

Earlier this year, Pearson and its Connections Academy partnered with HOSA-Future Health Professionals, a global student-led organization that has promoted career opportunities in the health industry since its inception in 1976. With this new partnership between Pearson and HOSA, students can jumpstart their healthcare careers early in the game.HOSA helps high school students gain soft and technical skills they need to prepare for healthcare jobs while participating in community service and leadership opportunities. Some of the soft skills that HOSA students develop include leadership, communication, and teamwork, which are among the top five skills most requested by employers. Students also get hands-on experience in the healthcare industry and meet like-minded students from around the world. 

The Partnership

Path to Pro is an initiative created by Home Depot and its Home Depot Pro contractors as a way to connect students interested in trade work to employers in the construction industry, an industry with a projected 640,000 openings each year. The program offers free, online training in a number of skills and then puts trained talent in front of professionals in its network.

It does this through several important steps: