education Grants

Section 1: Get the Funding You Need for Education:

Scholarships and Other Financial Aid: Create Your Own First Time Homebuyer Success Story 

Part A: Understanding Grants, Loans and other Educational Funding Alternatives from Government, Foundations and other Sources 

It is always important to understand the differences between grants, loans, scholarships and work-study programs. This is particularly important for college and other education funding, as the funding you receive is often a combination of grants, loans, scholarships and work-study awards.

Your excitement after being accepted by the college or other educational program of your choice is followed by either: a) news that you have been approved for financial aid, or b) the stress of being accepted but knowing you do not have the money to pay for it. In either situation, it is important to remember the various funding options available to you and what each means to you and your family in the long and short-term. In the frenzy and stress of college applications and the need to pay for it, the significant differences between these various funding alternatives can be easy to ignore or forget.

We've all read the marketing hype in our e-mail, television or classified ads, and the internet, about "free" and "easy" grant money from the government that is just 'waiting' for us to wave our magic wand (after we've paid the marketer for their e-book, CD or products ). This course is not marketing hype. It is just the facts you with practical and useful information about what, where, when and who can apply for grants, loans and other financial assistance (and who cannot), and how you can use effective research, writing and follow-up to increase your chances of getting educational funding.  It includes success stories, resources (with direct links), glossary and a current directory of grants, loans and other funding  available today. 

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This section provides a summary and some important comparisons of various alternative funding programs for anyone seeking to educational financing. Remember, each funding source (government, foundation, corporation) and funding opportunities (grant, loan, scholarship) they offer will probably have its own eligibility requirements and criteria.

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I. Grants

Grants are free financial assistance provided by various funding sources (grantors) to enable you to perform a particular service or act as described in the grantor's request for proposal (RFP) and your grant funding proposal. When it comes to education, these are generally in the form of scholarships (or fellowships). You do not pay any fees and they are not taxable as income by the IRS.  

What's the catch? There is none. The grantor (typically a private corporation or college or university) pays grant recipients (grantees) to make attending (their) college affordable to a particular student (you). Grants are typically provided for you (the grantee) to perform certain specified services that the grantor considers to be an important public service or community benefit and other causes favored by the particular grantor, such as education, in exchange for its grant money.

When it comes to educational grants, your challenge is selecting which is your best match and learning to differentiate legitimate grant/scholarship funding opportunities from rip-off scams. Federal agencies such as the U.S. Department of Education (ED) do not offer grants directly to individual students. This is the ED policy, despite statements by so-called "grant gurus" on their web sites, e-books and elsewhere describing free and easy government grants available for almost anything you want" including educational grants. These are intended for the marketer's benefit (selling books, CDs or other services), not yours. Much of this is overdone marketing hype.

When it comes to financing your college education, you will likely receive grant funds (scholarships) directly from a college or university (after it accepts your application for enrollment), state or local agencies or non-profit organizations that received the grant funds (a/k/a grant recipient/grantee), foundations, corporations, associations, other funding from federal and/or state agencies, and even the college or university itself. These various alternatives funding programs are discussed in detail later in this Section.