The Ins and Outs of Graduate Scholarships

Graduate scholarships are for students pursuing post-bachelor’s work at a university. Some of these students are in professional school pursuing law degrees or MBAs. Others are doing graduate work towards a MA or Ph.D. in the humanities or sciences.

Many graduate scholarships are designed along the same lines that undergraduate scholarships are. That is, they look largely at grades and test scores. There aren’t any athletic scholarships at the graduate level and scholarships for community service or specific accomplishments are rare.

Professional school is funded primarily through loans, although some limited scholarships are available. The assumption is that the student will have a good salary when he or she finishes medical school, law school, business school or the like and will be able to pay off the loans. In some ways, this limits graduates from taking on public service jobs because the crushing debt of the loans means they must pursue jobs where they make a lot of money. Limited scholarships are available. Schools which are trying to move up in the rankings may offer large scholarships to students who lift up their overall statistics as far as grades and test scores go. However, most professional school scholarships are under $5000.

Graduate scholarships in the sciences work differently though. These students don’t have a lucrative payoff at the end of their educations to look forward to. Therefore, they have to pay for school as they go.

Many graduate students finance school through fellowships. These fellowships often give full tuition remission as well as a small living stipend. In exchange, the fellows serve as research or teaching assistants part time while attending school.

Graduate scholarships are also available for students pursuing research in specific areas. Corporations often want to further knowledge in specific fields and will make grants to ensure that the next generation of researchers are well versed in a specific subject area. This is more true in the sciences than the humanities.

There are scholarships for non-professional graduate students as well. Some of these are targeted at women or minorities.

Graduate students should also be aware that many scholarship essay competitions are available to students at any level of schooling. While most of the time undergraduates participate in these competitions, graduate students actually have the edge in terms of experience and education.

If you are a graduate student and you are considering looking for scholarship money, you should subscribe to a free national scholarship database which will allow you to be matched with and to search for scholarships that will allow you to continue your education.

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