Scholarship Opportunities for Hispanic Students

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Money for College: Break the Mold and Succeed




For the hands down largest ethnic minority group in America, Hispanics face formidable challenges when it comes to higher education. Those students that do not wrestle with English have other barriers to negotiate: cultural, social, familial, and economic. However tough these obstacles seem there is a ray of hope: there is a bounty of scholarship opportunities for Hispanics.


Make Your Weakness Your Advantage

Your best advantage when winning scholarships may be exactly what you consider your biggest weakness. For example, scholarship selection committees "feel" for those students who face significant challenges, but who have taken steps to motivate themselves: work to put themselves into school, transcend family culture and become a first-in-family to attend college, engage themselves in a positive way with community groups, and so forth. You get the idea. Without a doubt, scholarships for any population are competitive, so you will have to work hard at them.


Popular Hispanic Scholarship Sources

Most important is the push to engage young Hispanic students in college education, whether it is in a two-year, four-year, graduate, even doctoral program. The opportunities for an affordable education are endless.

 

The Fastweb Scholarships for Hispanic and Latino Students guide lists more than 100 college scholarship and graduate fellowship programs for Hispanic and Latino students.

 

CORE (Chicano Organizing & Research in Education) offers an annual scholarship "Que llueva caf" for undocumented high school students of Chicano/Latino background entering college in the fall.

 

Hispanic Scholarship Fund is the Hispanic organization that distributes the largest amount of money in scholarships for Latinos.

 

The Hispanic College Fund is a non-profit organization that offers many scholarships for Latinos sponsored by various corporations. One of them is The SallieMae Fund's "First in My Family" scholarship for full time undergraduate students enrolled in approved, accredited institutions.

 

ScholarshipsforHispanics.com is a great directory of many scholarships for Hispanics available in the market.

 

The Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund offers scholarships for law students but most importantly, in their website you will find a list of scholarships available to students regardless of their immigration status.

 

LatinoCollegeDollars.org features scholarships for Latino students compiled by The Tom's Rivera Policy Institute. You can choose whether you are a high school, college or graduate student, your GPA and if citizenship is required or not and it will give you a list of opportunities. Watch out because some scholarships listed under "citizenship not required" have certain requirements that only documented students can fulfill like: "Must be eligible for federal aid."


The Hispanic Association of Colleges and Universities is a non-profit organization that offers scholarships, helps students find internships and study-abroad opportunities. It also offers great opportunities to network at their annual conference and various events.

 

Progress Financial is a company based in California that lends money to Latinos with limited or no credit history.

 

At the Network of Latino Credit Unions and Professionals website you will find a number of credit union members based in various areas of the country. Contact the one near you to find out about student loans.

 

The Sallie Mae website dedicated to preparing students for college. It gives information about preparing, selecting, applying and financing your studies. The First In My Family Scholarship Program awards $500 to $5000 each year to 100-200 Hispanic undergraduate students.

 

Rising Farmworker Dream Fund is a nonprofit organization that aims to leverage the power and resources of the business sector to enable positive social change within the American migrant farm working community. They offer scholarships to students with a farm working background and who are looking to apply to the top 30 MBA programs. They also offer one-on-one mentorship for pre-MBA.


TakeStockinChildren.org is a scholarship/mentor program based out of Florida that has helped low-income children flourish in crime ridden communities, graduate from high school and attend college! Each student in the program receives a college tuition scholarship, a mentor who provides support on a weekly basis, a case manager and career counseling.

 

The Hispanic Heritage Foundation has taken on a mission to inspire Hispanic students of all heritages to become extraordinary civic leaders. The organization specifically offers a number of annual Hispanic Heritage student scholarship awards.

 

For Hispanic students interested in journalism or broadcast media, the National Association of Hispanic Journalists (NAHJ) scholarships run between $1,000 and $5,000. All offer specific relevancy for Latinos who are sadly invisible in mainstream journalism.

 

The Actuarial Scholarships for Minority Students awards $500 to $3000 each year to up to 20-40 Hispanic and other minority undergraduate and graduate students majoring in actuarial science or math.

 

The Earl G. Graves NAACP Scholarship awards $5000 each year to varied number of Hispanic and other minority undergraduate and graduate students majoring in business.


NursingScholarship.us provides a list of various scholarships for Hispanic students pursuing a nursing degree.


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http://latinosincollege.com/ and http://www.collegescholarships.org