Graduating Debt-Free

I’ll let you in on a secret: I have no college debt. Months before I had officially graduated, I made my final payment on my student loans. While I am proud of myself, I do realize that there are many factors that contributed to this achievement. I would like to say that it’s all due to work ethic and making smart financial decisions, but that is simply not the case. After all, how fiscally responsible is it to attend a private, Catholic university in Chicago when I could have attended my community college for free?

Besides all the underlying factors of my race, socioeconomic background, and upbringing that largely contributed to my success in ways I may not even realize myself, I started freshman year with a college fund that lasted approximately one year. I also had a relatively small savings account (meaning less than $3,000) accumulated from working three jobs the summer before college and numerous jobs prior dating back to when I was ten years old. Halfway through my freshman year, I picked up a part-time job thanks to some previous coffee shop experience. I kept working and changing positions and eventually turned that part-time Starbucks job into a full-time restaurant job that I kept all the way through graduation. This kept me busy and earning instead of bored and spending throughout my four years.

As mentioned, there are many factors (some that I worked very hard for, some that I did not) that helped me achieve my goal of graduating debt free. Regardless, if I were to advise anyone on the best way to ward off student loans, I would unquestioningly report that applying for scholarships is by far the most important.

In my four years at DePaul, I received 26 scholarships and a little over $120,000. For those of you who are prone to crunch numbers, I realize that an average of $4,500 per scholarship sounds fantastic, but keep in mind that there were scholarships that I applied for and did not receive. Applying obviously does not mean that you’ll automatically receive money, but most would say that trying can certainly pay off.

What will I have to do?

Scholarships usually come down to a few key components, one being an application form that consists of general information like your name, address, major, GPA, etc. It may also ask about your expenses such as tuition, housing, food, transportation, and utilities. Sometimes, applications would also ask for a resume. These pieces, while tedious, are the easy part.

The majority of scholarships that I encountered additionally asked for an essay. For a lot of students, this is their worst nightmare. I’m lucky in the sense that I love to write and after what feels like a lifetime of educational writing, I have almost mastered the art of scholarship essays. Given the right conditions, I could probably type one out in about 20 minutes. Unfortunately, this is not the case for many other students.

Most students would prefer to take a test than to write an essay. I think that there is something daunting about staring at a blank screen and waiting for the right words to come so that you can start your three, five, or even ten page essay that’s worth 25% of your grade (and is also probably due tomorrow). Luckily, this isn’t the case for scholarship essays, but that may not change the overwhelming feeling of dread toward them.

What will I have to write about?

From my experience, there are two types of scholarship essay prompts. The first is very open and general. “If you were to receive this scholarship, how would the money help you achieve your professional goals?” or, “How would this scholarship benefit your education and future career?” To me, these were the home runs. I could type for days on this topic.

I found that one of the best ways to make the money sound useful and essential was to talk about my short-term educational goals. My freshman and sophomore year, I really pushed the fact that I wanted to study abroad. This was an obvious way that the scholarship money was able to help me. I always wrote something about how I could use the funds to save for my study abroad trip that would in turn teach me about a different culture and broaden my worldview. This is a very typical study-abroad-kid ploy, but not at all incorrect. After my program was complete, I felt like I didn’t have quite as convincing of an argument for the additional funds. What I quickly figured out is that I could use my second internship requirement as another practical reason for needing a scholarship. My point throughout my essays was that I needed an internship to graduate, that internship would likely pay less than my current job, if it paid at all, and that the scholarship money would allow me to pay tuition and other expenses while I made less money as an intern. In short, not getting the scholarship meant no internship, and no one wants to get in the way of a student’s internship requirements.

The second type of prompt was much more difficult to answer in my opinion. These can be very specific. For example, you may be applying to a scholarship from a specific fund at your university or donor that is very involved in a certain department or program. This question may ask you something like, “In what ways do you think the role of accountants has changed over the past decade?” or, “What challenges do recent graduates face that past graduates in (enter major or profession here) did not struggle with?” I always found these challenging because it seems that they are looking for one specific answer: and maybe they are, maybe they aren’t.

In truth, I did shy away from scholarships that asked more specific questions like this, but I did always give it a try. I’m not confident that I ever received a scholarship from an essay with a question like this, but even if I felt like I had no idea what I was talking about, I always wrote with the confidence of someone who knew exactly what to say. I would always write using definitive statements. For example, “I think that graduates face more difficulties when searching for jobs,” doesn’t sound as convincing as, “Graduates today face more difficulty finding jobs.” Even if you’re wrong, the confidence of a statement is a little more convincing than a thought or opinion.

Do you have any helpful tips?

Something that helped me every year was saving my scholarship essays from the year before. This was especially useful for most of the scholarships offered through my school. The same scholarships were offered every year and the prompts for these essays were almost always the same. I could edit out a paragraph or two from last year's essay and update it with my needs and goals for the current academic year.

Even for outside scholarships or prompts that didn’t repeat every year, having these essays saved was a great way to get started. I could take a paragraph or two from different essays and throw them together to answer a new prompt. It helped me feel like I didn’t have to start from scratch each time I went to apply for a scholarship, old or new, and it sped up the process. I always kept my files saved on Google Drive, but whatever system you use, whether it be emailing them to yourself, a flash drive, or something a little less outdated, would work just as well.

So...

The moral of this story is to try. Most essays that I encountered only needed to be one double-spaced page. Sometimes, it needed to be one single-spaced page. Even if it takes what feels like forever to write the essay, it could potentially be worth $500, $1,000, or more. Once, I wrote an essay that ended up being worth $8,000; my largest and most helpful scholarship by far.

School is hard and time consuming enough, and I know that most students could think of a million things that they would rather do than spend any of their free time applying for a scholarship that they aren’t guaranteed to receive. While you’re jumping through the hoops, it may feel like a waste of time, but as soon as your application is accepted, it will definitely feel justified. The first scholarship I received for $500 convinced me to keep applying. I know it never feels like it, but there are people out there just dying to give you money for tuition, and if you apply, you may just get it.