“Students only have to fill in their name and address and telephone number one time instead of once for every application they want to submit, so it’s really convenient for them. It’s easier for us,” said Elizabeth Horner, scholarship officer with The Dayton Foundation.
The website offers 160 scholarships, though some are school-specific, Horner said.
“Our scholarships range usually between $500 and a couple thousand dollars, and it all adds up,” Horner said.
The cost of higher education adds up, too. More than two-thirds of students who graduated from an Ohio college in 2014 left with student loan debt averaging $29,353, according to Project on Student Debt with The Institute for College Access & Success.
“We have a debt calculator which lets you calculate how much your school’s going to cost. You put your FAFSA (Free Application For Federal Student Aid) information in there. You see maybe how much the schools are going to expect you to pay,” Horner said.
Dorothy Mensah-Aggrey has taken out $100,000 in loans while pursuing a doctoral degree. She and her daughter, Davida Okyere-Fosu, a senior at Chaminade Julienne High School, have been using ScholarshipCONNECT with the hope they won’t need to take out more loans.
“She’s a good student so I’m hopeful, fingers crossed, that she’ll be able to get enough scholarships so that I wouldn’t have to come up with a whole lot,” Mensah-Aggrey told this paper.
Okyere-Fosu started working last fall to start saving for college and to get practice balancing a job while going to school. She’s been accepted to University of Dayton and is waiting to hear back from another university before making her final decision.
Average in-state tuition and fees for four-year public universities is $9,410 in 2015-2016, and $23,893 for out-of-state tuition, according to College Board’s “Trends in College Pricing 2015” study.
Okyere-Fosu said it took her and her mother a couple days to research and prepare to apply for the scholarships, but she said it was made easier thanks to a matching system ScholarshipCONNECT offers.
“Once you fill out a general application on The Dayton Foundation site, it pops up with other scholarships that are recommended for you so you can go and look and see which ones generally apply to you,” she said.
The site provided her with 13 recommendations based on her background and interests.
“It’s just an easy site, easy process, fairly simple,” Okyere-Fosu said.
The foundation, in partnership with the Dayton Montgomery County Scholarship Program, awarded $1.4 million in scholarships to Dayton region students last year, and it has sent more than 11,800 students to college, awarding more than $14 million in scholarships during the past 10 years.
“Click on every link you possibly can and just read and find out what is out there,” Mensah-Aggrey said.
The scholarships require completion of the FAFSA form, a resume, letters of recommendation and an essay.
The application deadline is Sunday, March 13.
More information is available at www.daytonfoundation.org.
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