College Scholarships for 3rd Graders?
Many parents hope or expect their children to grow up and go to college and many children grow up hoping or expecting the same. In previous articles, I talked about non-traditional options such as trade school, apprenticeship, certificate programs, etc. But, what if your child’s career path either requires college or would be best served by a college education but funding is an issue?
When to Start Planning
Many children start thinking more seriously about college when they reach High School, especially around the 10th and 11th grade. By then, college is only a year or two away and they begin to feel the stress as time slips away. Did you know that children can begin applying for scholarships even before High School?
A few years ago, in a Ramsey documentary called, Borrowed Future, (which centered around the student loan debt crisis, I heard a young lady say she started her college fund when she was 8 years old. She had several thousand dollars in scholarships and hadn’t even reached high school, yet. That intrigued me, so I went on a search to see how early children can begin applying for college financial aid- particularly scholarships.
Grants are a lot more restrictive, so I focused on scholarships. All scholarships have eligibility
requirements, but they don’t all center around age. Many scholarships don’t have any age requirements at all, meaning applicants can be young children or can be senior citizens. Other scholarships do specify age requirements and/or grade requirements. Of those, I’ve seen several open to 6th and 7th graders. I even seen some open to 3rd graders. I saw one That lines up with the young lady who said she started her fund when she was 8 years old. The paradigm Challenge is open for children as young as 4 years old.
According to the Forbes article, How To Grab Nearly $3 Billion Of College, “nearly $3 billion in grants and scholarships [are] left on the table every year” and “some $2.6 billion went unclaimed for the 2018-2019.”
If you have a role of influence in the lives of children and parents, spread the word that it’s not too early to start planning for and saving for college. There’s no reason to suffer in the confines of a one- or two-year window, or even a 3 or 4-year window. Youth can create a habit of completing at least one application and essays weekly and increase the number as they get used to process and approach college age. Also, teach them to have a balanced approach, applying for large scholarships and small ones. Don’t assume phantom “better” candidates will automatically get the big ones and don’t assume, the small ones aren’t worth the effort. Several scholarships- even for a few hundred dollars each- add up over the course of several years and help reach that goal quicker.
