Your Education

Scholarships, Fellowships, and Loans

Only after conferring with your financial aid office should you apply for outside funding. Many foundations make awards for scholarship programs, but most such funding goes to colleges and universities, which then distribute the funds according to a variety of criteria. A small number of foundations (some 5,000 that the Foundation Center has identified) do make grants directly to individuals. These are included in our database Foundation Grants to Individuals Online and a significant proportion of those grants are for direct scholarships, fellowships and loans to students at all levels.