Motivating Students to Apply for Scholarships

One might think that the potential money gained and saved by applying to scholarships may be motivating enough to our students, but students often need further encouragement to make the time to apply for scholarships.  However, finding the right motivation for each student is a challenge.  Below are a few ideas to assist students in applying for scholarships.  One may inspire you or your students – or help you create your own ideas for motivational activities.

• Motivate Students with Numbers – For those students who express concerns with the costs of college, discuss the real costs of college. Demonstrate visually the amount of loans a student may need to take out.  Then demonstrate decreasing the amount of those loans with any scholarships received.  For students who are visual, this may aid in their understanding of the importance in applying for those scholarships.
• Provide Students Awards for Applying for Scholarships – You may have a small budget to purchase movie tickets, restaurant gift cards, or other prizes students may be interested in obtaining. You may also want to seek sponsors to provide some awards for students.  You may decide to have a drawing for these awards.  Perhaps a student can have one entry per scholarship applied for or a tiered award system with larger prizes for the students who apply for a greater number of scholarships.
• Assign Students an Accountability Partner – Some students may benefit from having an accountability partner to report their application process to and to have their partner check up on their progress. The accountability partner could be another student who is interested in applying for scholarships.  Teachers and other faculty/staff members at your school may also be great accountability partners for students applying to scholarships.
• Scholarship Parties – What is often motivating to students is time with friends, food, and perhaps a chance to miss class. To combine these things with the work of applying for scholarships and perhaps some music can motivate students to work on scholarship applications.
• Help Students Apply – This may sound simple, but often what students need is a trusted adult who will help get them started on the scholarship application process. Often students lose motivation because they do not know what scholarships to apply for, where to find them, and how to fill out the applications.  If we can be that trusted adult to demonstrate the process and guide them through the application, this may give students the confidence and motivation to continue applying to scholarships.

Hopefully, these ideas will help you in your quest to motivate students to apply for scholarships.  Good luck – and have fun.  Often a little fun goes a long way in helping students.

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Written by Jessica Butler, Region 6 Next Steps Idaho Ambassador (2021-2022)