by Chelsea Springli 
There’s no doubt that scholarships help students counterbalance the rising costs of college. They allow them to focus on their education (not money) and lower students’ overall student loan debt.
Missouri students looking to reap the rewards of receiving a scholarship will want to check out this list of scholarships.
ISL Midwest Senior Scholarship
Amount: $1,000
Deadline: April
Eligibility:
- Legal U.S. resident
- A resident of Illinois, Minnesota, Missouri, Nebraska, South Dakota, or Wisconsin
- High school senior planning to attend an eligible college in the fall
Application Requirements: N/A
The ISL Midwest Senior Scholarship is one of the easier scholarships in Missouri to apply for. It has no essay, GPA, or class rank requirement, nor does it consider financial need. Instead, winners are randomly drawn from all eligible entries.
Purdy Emerging Leaders Scholarship
Amount: Varies, up to $5,000, renewable.
Deadline: May
Eligibility:
- Be a Missouri resident.
- Be an undergraduate sophomore, junior or senior attending a Missouri 4-year or 2-year higher education institution in the following year.
- Be enrolled full-time, unless enrolled in final semester prior to degree completion.
- Generally, a cumulative college GPA of 2.50 or higher is mandatory.
The Purdy Emerging Leaders Scholarship from the Missouri Scholarship & Loan Foundation is named in honor of Allan Walker Purdy. This program provides merit-based scholarships to emerging leaders who are outstanding students and who have the need for additional resources for higher education. This scholarship supports candidates who demonstrate leadership, character, and academic performance.
CollegeVine Scholarships
Amount: Up to $500
Deadline: Weekly
Eligibility: High school student and U.S. resident
Application Requirements: Create a free CollegeVine account
Though not exactly a scholarship in Missouri, CollegeVine Scholarships are too good of an opportunity to pass up for students looking to earn easy money for college. All you have to do is join the free admissions platform and earn karma—the free CollegeVine “currency”—to become eligible for these awards. You can earn Karma by reviewing essays through the Peer Review tool and answering questions in the Community Forums. You can bid Karma to enter the scholarship drawing, and if you don’t win, that karma is returned, so you can “spend” it on essay reviews and expert advice. Awards will be paid out directly to students to help them cover any educational costs.
My Scholarship Central is another great Missouri college scholarship resource. The My Scholarship Central Search Tool helps students in Missouri, Kansas City, Kansas, and the Metro East counties of St. Louis in Illinois find the scholarship providers that serve their area. Students can also apply to more than 100 scholarships and interest-free loan programs that collect applications through My Scholarship Central. Create a free account at the My Scholarship Central website.
The Scholarship Foundation partners with community organizations, foundations, and corporations to aid students seeking college degrees with scholarships and grants. These are renewable awards that you do not have to repay. Students are selected based on criteria specified by the donor, such as field of study, place of residence, participation in a specific youth program, and/or college the student is attending. For more information and other scholarship opportunities, visit the Scholarship Foundation of St. Louis website.
5 Tips for Applying to Scholarships
As college costs continue to climb, so is the competition for scholarships. Luckily, there are some simple steps you can take to improve your odds of winning an award.
1. Seek out smaller, more niche awards. National awards with large payouts generally attract a giant pool of applicants. While these large payouts are great, with so many applicants it’s hard for you to stand out and win. Conversely, smaller state and local awards have a much smaller applicant pool and are often less competitive. Look out for niche scholarship opportunities that fit your activities, community, and/or location.
2. Follow directions. Applying for scholarships is both time- and effort-intensive and getting disqualified from a scholarship for failing to follow directions is frustrating. Before submitting your application, make sure you fill out the fields correctly and submit the necessary material.
3. Don’t wait until the last minute. A host of issues can affect your ability to submit your scholarship application—from websites crashing to your internet going offline. Give yourself a buffer of a few days and submit your application in advance of the deadline.
4. Proofread everything. You’re trying to present the best version of yourself to the people who award scholarships—poor spelling and grammatical errors send the wrong message. Before submitting any material, double-check it for errors or, even better, have a parent or teacher proofread it for you.
5. Do your research. Learn about the organization awarding the scholarship and study up on past award winners to get a clearer picture of what the organization is looking for in a scholarship recipient.
A variety of financial aid is available to help students and families pay for college. Grants and scholarships are awarded to students of all ages, and eligibility is based on many different factors including financial need, academic achievement, civic involvement, athletic ability, and other skills and interests. The U.S. Department of Education offers several federal grants to help with higher education costs. To qualify for federal financial aid, students must meet all eligibility requirements and complete the Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA) each year they attend college.
Good luck,
Chelsea Springli
