By Alexis Dancer
Photo by Allef Vinicius on Unsplash
Scholarships and Financial Aid, two key elements when someone thinks about college and how they might afford it. Along with COVID-19 came many shutdowns for businesses and many have been struggling to bounce back since. Scholly, a scholarship app for students, says they’ve seen a 400 percent increase in downloads since the end of March. In regard to the economy not being in a well off state, students are looking for more help now than they needed before. With a limited number of scholarships out there, many families are rethinking their students game plan for college. Some scholarship foundations such as Cincinnati’s are seeing about a 30% increase over previous years in scholarship requests and a decline in donations during the pandemic. Meaning those who are still applying for grants and scholarships may have a better shot of receiving the aid available during the pandemic.
Along with scholarships for good grades and applying for financial aid comes student athlete scholarships. With sporting programs across the world getting shutdown, many didn’t know what to do. Today there are some college level and higher sports available for communities to watch with restrictions, yet many smaller college level student athletes are still waiting to return. If you’re good at sports and are able to maintain a scholarship it can be a fun way to go through college and not stress quiet as much about the finances that come with it. With online schooling being the only option available to most students, they are beginning to miss out on sports and other physical activities that can help reduce some of the stress. The Mayo Clinic stated, “If you’re not an athlete or even if you’re out of shape, you can still make a little exercise go a long way toward stress management.” On top of that, being shut down at the moment leaves future students without an opportunity to show their skills off for college recruiters as games are cancelled. Scholarships for sports were not being given out at all this past year, leaving coaches and fans uncertain of what the next season will look like and when it might be here.
With college admissions rates continuing to decline, something needs to change in order to give students hope and motivation to return each semester. The National Student Clearinghouse reported spring undergraduate enrollment is down 5.9 percent compared to the same time last year. They also stated it’s the steepest decline that they have seen thus far since the pandemic first hit. Although this isn’t a great thing to look at, it does provide students who are currently attending through this less competition for scholarships and financial aid available so it’s important that they apply during these times. President Trump also signed a CARES act that gives higher education an emergency fund to help students during the COVID-19 pandemic. Only some students are eligible however, so it’s important to talk to financial aid and figure out if your case meets the requirements. Other things are being done to help as well, the Federal Student Aid website allows students to read about situations that may apply to them during this time and how they can potentially adjust or appeal to the financial aide office and get coverage for their full tuition.
Many Universities are working to fix these problems and make it so students can afford to go. There have even been new COVID-19 scholarships created specifically to help those in need during these times. Unigo, a college website to discover schools, scholarships, and loans, has easy ways for students to apply for these new scholarships along with many more. Carolina’s Covid relief scholarship is estimated to cover around $6,000 off a student’s first year of tuition alone. Unigo also states the government has also allowed A temporary suspension of loan payments, halt to collection of defaulted loans and 0% interest rate on ED loans. With these being put in place, it’s one less thing students have to stress about on top of how they’re going to afford the current term. If financial aid can appeal to your needs and adjust your payments then work the best angles you can as well as applying for scholarships
with less applicants at the moment. The faculty, schools, and government need to stay on top of the charges and amounts being given put to students. While one side works on cost changes, the students also need to utilize the sources they are given and continue to apply for aid available during these times.. With both sides listening to the demands of the others they can figure out what prices work and how to obtain more student enrollment overall. As far as the sporting scholarships go, allowing try out videos or a team camp where new students can try out will allow more stress to be released within them as well as helping them get back into extracurricular activities.
