While it’s true that colleges dispense roughly $1 billion dollars in athletic scholarships each year, the chances of scoring big money are miniscule. The bottom line: only a small percentage of teenage jocks win athletic scholarships. According to the NCAA, only 2 percent of high school athletes, roughly 130,000 kids, bag a full or partial scholarship.
An analysis of athletic scholarships in 2008 determined that more than 1 million boys played football in high school, but only 28,299 ( less than 3%) received a scholarship in Division I or II. Girls faced adverse odds too. More than 600,000 competed in track and field (the most popular girls’ sport), but fewer than 10,000 won a scholarship that was worth an average of $8,100 a year. The average amount awarded for all sports was $10,400, but students could receive far, far less.
To improve your understanding of how to receive athletic scholarships,
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In order to get an academic scholarship to pay for school, you are going to need to get exceedingly good grades and, most likely, graduate in the top five to ten percent of your class. Merit scholarships are often related to academic performance, but can also be given to a candidate displaying artistic or athletic excellence or sometimes a combination thereof.
It's probably safe to say that, while all academic scholarships are merit scholarships, not all merit scholarships are academic scholarships. You have a chance at winning scholarships of this nature if you’re a strong student, either generally or in your area of study, and an even better chance if you’re heavily involved in extracurricular activities.
For some merit scholarships, only a 2.0 GPA is required. The bottom line is that scholarships aren’t just for 4.0 students… nearly 25% of college students will receive some type of merit aid. Visit the links below to find out how you can a piece of the $15 billion scholarship funds.
Are you ready for the financial responsibility of attending a 4-year university? This year, nearly 1.8 million graduating college seniors left school with student loan debts—$22,500 on average. The amount of outstanding loans has more than doubled in the past ten years, growing from $41 billion to $85 billion. Of the loans taken out, 77% are federal and 23% come from private sources, like banks. Know that private loans can be riskier, have high or variable interest rates, and may require a cosigner.
There are many options out there to help you pay for college. We've listed some of the popular loans & grants below to help you get started.