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The Florida Bright Futures Scholarship programs are awesome education funding options for Florida state residents—if you can get through the application process, that is. The scholarships offered are particularly nitpicky and tedious about their eligibility requirements: the official handbook outlining these criteria is its own 14-page book chapter. (Luckily, we've created an overview for you in a different, much shorter post.)

Not to worry! We've outlined all the eligibility criteria for Florida Bright Futures Scholarships (general and specific, for each scholarship, with every single exception or special circumstance) in a way that’s a bit easier to get through.

We've also included information about when to expect notification about your eligibility. Once you’re considered eligible, you’re one (big) step closer to winning a Bright Futures Scholarship. After you’ve processed all this information, we'll get to the good stuff—how to increase your chances of winning your own Bright Futures award.

McDonald's charities offer many different scholarships for college-bound seniors all over the country, all with different awards and eligibility requirements. Because there's so much variability among awards, applying for a McDonald's scholarship can seem daunting. Ultimately, though, it's worth it to apply—since 1985, Ronald McDonald House Charities have given out over $65 million in scholarships. Wouldn't it be great to get a small piece of that?

I'll walk you through the different types of scholarship awards that McDonald's offers, in addition to offering tips and strategies to optimize your chances of winning your own award.

If you're planning on pursuing an education or career in health care, you should definitely check out the Tylenol Future Care Scholarship, a merit-based award meant for undergraduate and graduate students who are enrolled in any of a wide variety of health care programs, including public health, health education, med school, nursing, and even pharmaceuticals.

We'll talk about the eligibility requirements and the application process first before discussing tips and strategies you can use to optimize your chances of winning a Future Care Scholarship.

The Gates Scholarship is a program with a huge impact. Launched in 2017, the program's mission is to give opportunities to outstanding minority students to reach their highest potential.

In this guide, I'll go through all the details of the scholarship and the application protocols. After that, I'll give you expert tips and strategies for putting together the strongest Gates Scholarship application possible. Read on to learn more!

Note: The Gates Scholarship was established in 2017 as a replacement for the Gates Millennium Scholars Program, which reached its goal of 20,000 scholars in 2016.

Paying for school is daunting enough when you have the financial support of your family. But for students whose parents can't or won't contribute to expenses, figuring out how to pay for college on your own becomes a whole different challenge.

In this guide, I'll lay out everything you need to consider about how to pay for college without parents and all the steps you need to take.

Many international students hoping to study in the United States are interested in scholarships for international students. But can international students get financial aid in the US?

The truth is that it's often very difficult for international students to get substantial financial aid. However, it is possible to not only get financial aid as an international student, but to get a very generous aid package that pays for most or all of your university expenses. In this article on financial aid for international students, we go over all your options and explain where to spend the most time looking for scholarships and which routes will likely not get you the financial aid you're hoping for.

Walmart offers several scholarship opportunities for dependents of their employees. The Walmart Dependent Scholarship is meant to cover college or vocational school expenses for those with financial need.

In this guide, I'll start by talking about eligibility requirements and the application process. If you're already familiar with this information, skip to the second half of this post—this is where I'll give tips and strategies for increasing your chances of winning a Walmart scholarship.

Scholarships can be a significant source of college funding for students of all different backgrounds - if you know where to look, that is. Many top scholarships have eligibility requirements regarding financial need or academic merit, but there are also excellent scholarship programs that are specifically for minority students. Most of these programs were created in order to facilitate access to education for minority students, and many aim to help students pursue careers in which people of certain ethnicities or backgrounds are underrepresented. 

One of the best ways to optimize scholarship funding is to apply to scholarships with more specific eligibility requirements (requirements that you meet, of course). To help you find scholarships like this, I’ve compiled a list of awards meant for students of specific ethnic and racial backgrounds. I started with scholarships meant for students of all minority backgrounds before moving into awards meant for specific minorities. Finally, I’ve ended with some tips and strategies for getting the most scholarship money possible. 

Did you know that you can actually get scholarship money for playing video games? It’s true! Even though eSports only started being offered as a varsity college sport a few years ago, today over 100 schools have official eSports teams. On top of that, many of them offer eSports scholarships!

So how can you get some of this money for yourself? In this guide, we’ve compiled everything you need to know about eSports scholarships, including which schools offer scholarships (and how much those scholarships are worth), which games are most popular to play on college teams, and how you can earn one of these video game scholarships.

Thousands of DACA recipients graduate from U.S. high schools every year, but only a small percentage of these students go on to attend college. But many of those graduates don’t attend college because they can’t afford it.

But did you know that there are actually many financial aid opportunities that DACA recipients are eligible for, including numerous scholarships? Financial aid can help make even the most expensive colleges affordable!

We’ve composed a guide to scholarships for DACA students to help you locate and navigate the financial aid opportunities for DACA recipients. In this guide, we’ll explain what DACA is, who qualifies for DACA scholarships, and where DACA scholarships are accepted. After that, we’ll provide a list of the 12 best DACA scholarships and give you four tips for applying for DACA scholarships.

Are you considering applying for federal financial aid? If so, you might have heard of the Perkins loan program. Perkins loans are government-backed, low-interest loans that are meant to help students pay for school. They come with a lot of great perks, including the opportunity for loan cancellation (that's exactly what it sounds like it is⁠—imagine taking out a loan for school and not having to pay it back!).

If you want to get a Perkins loan for yourself, you've come to the right place. Read on for easy-to-follow instructions on exactly how to apply for a federal Perkins loan.

Note: As of 2017, the Perkins loan program is no longer being run. But don't worry⁠—we'll still give you a few options for what you can do for aid instead!

If you’re looking for a way to fund your college education, you should definitely check out merit scholarships. They’re especially great options for high-achieving students who may not qualify for much need-based financial aid. The best part of getting a merit scholarship is, of course, that you’re essentially getting free money for school. But how to get a merit scholarship can still be confusing and overwhelming.

In this post, I’ll explain what defines a merit scholarship before going into both where you can find them and how you can get them. At the end, you’ll find a list of some of the top merit awards available - this way, you can get a head start on getting that cash.

College is a huge investment - you spend a lot of time, energy, and money to earn a degree. Graduating from school means making financial sacrifices, but it also means reaping significant educational and professional rewards.

But what if the whole money problem wasn’t an issue? What if you could go to school without worrying about tuition expenses or accruing interest? With a full ride scholarship, all your college costs are taken care of. Instead of thinking about paying your bills, you could focus on the important things: studying for that big exam or getting your term paper in on time. Here, I’ll lay out everything you need to know about how to get a full ride scholarship: what exactly it is, who can get one, and where you can find them.

Applying for scholarships can be stressful and time-consuming, especially if you’re looking at really competitive awards. Wouldn’t it be nice to apply for scholarships that you knew you had a really good shot at winning?

If you want to get your hands on some easy scholarship money, you’re in the right place. First, I’ll talk a little bit about what it means to be an easy-to-win scholarship. Then, I’ll get to the good stuff by directing you to the places you should look for these awards - you might be surprised at where you can find them - and how to put together a successful application.

If you’re a high school student and a green card holder, you might be wondering if you’re eligible for any financial assistance for college.

The short answer to the question, “Can green card holders get financial aid?” is yes, but what’s the process for getting it? We’ll discuss the forms you have to fill out and how to determine your eligibility for financial aid as a green card holder in this article.