I’ll be completely honest—if it wasn’t for academic scholarships and grants, I would not be able to afford college. We’re all aware that every year college gets a little more expensive, and any help that you can get in paying for your tuition and room and board is greatly appreciated. For that reason, receiving scholarships is one of the best feelings: to know that you can worry that much less about paying off your college debt in the future can be a huge weight lifted off your chest. Remember that feeling.
The reason you need to remember that feeling is because even more important than receiving scholarships is giving back to them to ensure that future generations can afford the same amazing higher education experience as you. In 2015, for the first time in five years, parental contributions to college expenses became the number one form of financial aid for students, outweighing both scholarships and grant. This is especially striking considering that we millennials are less likely to make more than our parents. It’s paramount that we manage our finances in college as best we can, which is why every single dollar of scholarship and grant money makes a difference.
You see, scholarships are cyclic, they are given to people but they almost need to be given to by people in order to be sustained. As a college student, it can be easy to sit back and assume that your school’s wealthy donors will just take care of scholarships for future students, but think for a minute about who some of those wealthy donors are—alumni. These aren’t faceless figures with deep pockets, these are people who likely attended your institution and care deeply about ensuring that future students have the same opportunities that they did.
In many cases, these people aren’t even exceptionally wealthy either, not fiscally anyways, but they are wealthy in compassion. Your scholarships might be given to you because of contributions from a wealthy donor, or it could be given to you because of the generosity of some of your professors and the faculty at your school, the people who want to help you grow into successful young adults. Your scholarships may even be given to in part due to the selflessness of recent graduates who, despite not having much, realized how much their 10, 20, 50, 100, etc., dollars would make a difference in your life, because of the difference scholarships made in their life.
As a college student I joke about being broke, and it’s somewhat true, but the simple fact that I’m in college means that I am better off than many people. The next time you think about how grateful you are to be able to have a higher education experience at your institution, think about the kids dreaming of college right now. You remember what it was like—exciting and terrifying—you were so thrilled at the idea of the college experience, but at the same time, you saw your parents' beat up car, or you knew that it wasn’t going to be easy to pay for your education, and that you would probably graduate with debt.
Remember that feeling: the feeling you got when you received your acceptance letter from your school and realized that, yeah, you were going to graduate with some debt, but because you got a scholarship it wasn’t going to be as bad. I know that maybe you’re thinking you don’t have the money to give back to future students, and if you really don’t that’s understandable, but think of it this way: if you save one small coffee/frappe/latte/pick-your-poison ($5 dollars) a week for the entire semester, you could give about $80 dollars. That doesn’t sound like a lot, but let’s say that every student on your campus did that. In my case that’s around 1,000 students, so $80,000 dollars. That number got big fast, didn’t it?
Yes, you really can make a difference in giving back to your school's scholarship funds to ensure that future students can afford the same amazing experience that you were given. Be compassionate, be generous, and remember: it felt really good to receive that scholarship, but it’s going to feel even better to know that somebody else will receive one too.
