In that academic year, 1,234,249 high school graduates did not fill out a Free Application for Federal Student Aid. According to the Nerdwallet website, calculations estimated that out of those students, 648,191 of them would have been eligible for a Pell grant.
There has been a misconception that there is a lot of scholarship money floating around that students can easily obtain if they apply. According to ScholarshipPoints, this idea derived from a study the National Institute of Work and Learning conducted on the 1976-1977 academic year. The study mentions tuition assistance and readers equated that to scholarships.
Christy Rosson, the director of scholarships at Texas Tech, said the only reason any scholarship money would go undistributed is if donor requirements cannot be met. It is usually geographical requirements that restricts the scholarship office from awarding all the budget money.
“For example, this year, I have a scholarship that is specific to students with financial need in Clay County,” Rosson said. “I have enough to award 74, but I can only award 8.”
Rosson said usually in those cases, they would ask the donor to expand their parameters, and in this case the donor agreed and Rosson was able to disburse the rest of the money for this academic school year.
The award money that usually goes unclaimed is the federal Pell grant, which is allocated once a student’s FAFSA has been reviewed. Whereas the Pell grant is based on need, most scholarships are not and can be very competitive. According to ScholarshipPoints, almost all scholarships for college have more applicants than available funds.
Though that has been found through research, during the 2016-17 academic year, Tech’s enrollment was 36,551, yet Rosson said her office only had around 5,000 applications.
“We are working diligently to get the word out, especially to current students. Freshmen are very good,” Rosson said, “They forget as sophomores or juniors or seniors to complete their current student application.”
Rosson said there are three levels of scholarships: university, college and departmental. Her office focuses on university level scholarships.
For incoming freshmen, guaranteed scholarships are merit based, including class rank and test scores. For incoming transfers, guaranteed scholarships are based on their grade point average from their previous institution as well as the number of hours they bring in with them.
As for competitive scholarships, it can be anything the donor requests, such as what high school a student went to, what county a student lives in, whether or not they have financial need, select students majoring in a certain area or anything else that specifies.
While there is a lot of emphasis placed on incoming, transfer and competitive scholarships, there is often a lack of communication that current student scholarship applications exist as well.
“For current students, you can apply for scholarships every year as a Red Raider,” Rosson said. “It’s called the current student application and it’s found on our website.”
Rosson said she encourages students to apply for scholarships during Christmas break because that is the time students have less demands, giving them time to solely focus on scholarships.
To put themselves in the best possible position for money, Rosson said students should fill out their FAFSA, do their scholarship application and complete their expected enrollment requirements.
“Our outreach director encourages students to eat pie and apply,” Rosson said.
Todd Chambers, the associate dean of undergraduate affairs for the College of Media and Communication, deals with scholarships at the college level. He said in general, one of the things he has seen in his 20 years of teaching is he used to have to beg students to apply for scholarships. It would often be difficult for him to get students to apply. But that is no longer the case for students currently in the college.
“Where I see some of our internal to College of Media and Communication scholarships going unclaimed are probably from incoming freshman,” Chambers said.
Either freshmen initially selected another university or received an MCOM scholarship but changed majors and now that scholarship no longer applies to them. In those cases, the scholarships are always re-awarded.
When it comes to applications, Chambers said he wishes there were more. MCOM’s scholarships are promoted through social media, publicity in newsletters, in-house marketing in terms of posters and Chambers sends out emails with updates to all undergraduate students.
“Sometimes I’m at a loss at how else we can do it,” Chambers said.
Tech offers scholarships outside of university, college and departmental levels, such as the Tech Alumni Association scholarship.
Joshua Barraza, a freshman creative media industries major from Comfort, received enough scholarships to have his first year of college paid for. Among the many scholarships Barraza received was the Alumni Association scholarship. The only one he received from Tech.
“I didn’t think I was going to get a scholarship,” Barraza said. “I applied just to apply because it never hurts to apply. I actually did it very last minute.”
Barraza said he applied for a scholarship every day for two months, which was very stressful but helped in the end.
Another outside source that provides opportunities for scholarships is the Center for Campus Life.
Kimberly Thornton, the director of Center for Campus Life, said the center offers a lot of programs and ways for students to get involved on campus. It oversees all the student organizations on campus such as the registration process, leadership opportunities, resources and scholarships.
Thornton said by getting involved with a student organization, it opens a student up to possibly receiving more scholarship opportunities.
As far as students who stumble across desperate times in the school year and need assistance, Rosson said the scholarship office is given limited funding for lending help in those cases. However, there are other ways Tech students can seek assistance.
“We have some things like the Raider Relief Program that is available for students that need a one-time help. There’s a whole process we can do to help,” Thornton said. “We also have the Raider Red Food Pantry. If someone is down on their luck, if someone needs help and don’t have food money, they can absolutely come to our pantry.”
There are over 550 student organizations on campus. Thornton said there are a lot of ways to get involved and encourage students to seek the Center for Campus Life to help them get involved in a variety of ways.
Tech’s scholarship applications open on October 1, 2018 and close February 1, 2019.
“Student loan debt is crazy and increasing daily, and so students that put forth the effort to receive scholarships certainly earned them and don’t have to repay that debt,” Rosson said. “Long term it helps ease that financial burden of their families, especially if they have other siblings. It’s hard for families to afford college educations.”
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