What’s the difference between the two?
Here’s a website that provides a pretty good comparison between the two:
http://www.exforsys.com/career-center/scholarships/difference-between-scholarship-and-grant.html
In short, it looks like it comes down to:
[ul]
[li] Scholarships are generally closely tied to education, whereas grants aren’t (necessarily)[/li][li] Grants don’t usually require the recipient to maintain certain qualifications (e.g., a certain GPA; graduating with certain degree; etc.), whereas many scholarships do[/li][/ul]
Thanks!
My experience with 2 kids in college (in California, at least, but I expect it’s similar elsewhere) is that the cost of a year’s education is divided up in to three slices, based on the parents’ and student’s income and assets.
There’s the “expected family contribution”, which parents are expected to come up with;
the student’s contribution, which might be expected to come from their savings, or from eligibility for work-study;
and then the difference between those amounts and the cost of a year’s education, which is covered by the university with grants and loans.
A grant goes in that third pile - making up the difference to the total cost. A scholarship counts towards the student’s own contribution, so a student who earns one gets the benefit of holding on to some of their savings, or not having to work.
Interesting, thanks. (Since my readership is mostly nontraditional – i.e., older – students, though, their pie would be in two slices, no parents involved.)
Its probably not a hard and fast rule, but in my experience a “grant” is a pile of money they give to you, to pay for school, and a “scholarship” is something they give to the school directly (or the school simply wipes off the bill, if the scholarship comes from the school).
For example, I have an academic scholarship that covers approximately 80% of my law school tuition. When the scholarship is disbursed each semester, the school simply takes the specified amount off the total bill that I owe - I do not have the option of taking the cash myself.
Similarly, if you do service with Americorps, you get a certain amount of money that can only be paid directly to a school. There is no way to spend it on any other thing other than tuition - they will not hand the money over to the student.
Compare with a Federal Pell Grant, which can be disbursed directly to the student.