At the bottom line, college scholarships are a financial instrument that allows you to attend college and have part of all of your expenses paid for by the scholarship. Having a scholarship to defray part of all of that cost can mean the difference between going to a community college versus a brand name college, or even worse, the difference between attending college and not attending college at all.

The difference between a college scholarship and financial aid is one very minor point, but an incredibly important point: a college scholarship does not need to be repaid after you graduate from college, whereas financial aid like a student loan does need to be repaid. Some people think that college scholarships are only for those students who meet a very narrow criteria, such as a star football jock or a musical genius. Find as many college scholarship applications as you can, then sharpen your pencil and get to work!