Student Financial Aid and Resources

By: Bree Maciel

Illustrated by: Carla Cieza

George Fox University (GFU) offers many student resources, including the Office of Financial Aid and Scholarship Resource Center. If you are struggling to figure out your financial aid or find and apply for scholarships, then check out the Office of Financial Aid’s website and schedule an appointment with a financial aid counselor. Someone from the Scholarship Resource Center can help you find and apply for the many scholarships out there to help you pay for your degree.

FAFSA: The FAFSA is a great resource for all students who are looking for financial aid and should be one of the first things you fill out. By filling out the FAFSA, you apply for federal grants, work-study, and loans. It also helps your university determine your federal aid eligibility. Though it may seem daunting to fill out, it is important and is one of the first things that is recommended when applying for financial aid.

HOW DO I FIND SCHOLARSHIPS?

Local Scholarships: The first place you should look for scholarships is within your community. Put yourself out there! Don’t be afraid to ask around your town, or get in contact with local churches, businesses (especially those that are related to your field of study), and even local community foundations or chamber of commerce. Oftentimes there will be businesses or organizations that have scholarships available and want to help support people form their community.

University Scholarships: The next place to look for scholarships is within your university. GFU has a lot of donor funded scholarships that are available for students to apply for, and you only have to fill out one application! The Donor Funded Scholarship application can be accessed through your MyGFU account and all you need to do is fill it out and submit it before the deadline (Feb. 17th) in order to apply to the Donor Funded Scholarships offered throughout the university.

State Scholarships: A third but very important place to look is in your state. For those who are residents of Oregon the OSAC scholarship application is a compilation of over 600 scholarships that you can apply to by just filling out one application. You can even search through the database using keywords that relate to your field of study or career path and then apply to those scholarships. The early deadline for the OSAC application is Feb. 16, but it is still open to complete until March 1st. Even if you aren’t an Oregon resident there are state scholarships that you can apply for and even some larger databases that will help with searching for scholarships. You can also apply to some national scholarships.

Field of Study: A good way to find scholarships that you are going to qualify for is within your field of study (major) or your career path. It is important to know where you want to be headed in the future, and having this information can be very useful to help you narrow down more scholarships that you may qualify for. It also might be a good idea to reach out to other students or faculty within your field for ideas on where to look for scholarships.

Scholarship Essays: Writing scholarship essays can be overwhelming and at times, repetitive, so here are a few tips to help you out! First, make it personal. Try to avoid generic phrases, and show who you are and your passions while still answering the prompt in a clean and professional way. By making it personal the reader will have more of an insight into who you are and will oftentimes be more invested in your essay and give you a better chance at receiving that scholarship. Easier said than done, right? Though these essays can be tedious to write, remember that the Academic Resource Center (ARC) in the Murdock library is a resource that you can use to help you with writing. Copy down the essay prompts and write your essay on a separate document. Quite a few essay prompts for scholarships tend to be the same or at least similar to each other, so if you write a really good essay and want to use parts of it for another application, having a separate folder or document with your essays or work can be really helpful and will allow you to save some time instead of writing your essays from scratch.

LINKS:

FAFSA APPLICATION: Apply for Financial Aid | Federal Student Aid

OSAC APPLICATION: Welcome to the OSAC Student Portal (oregonstudentaid.gov)
SCHOLARSHIP RESOURCE CENTER: Scholarship Resource Center | George Fox University
FINANCIAL AID OFFICES: Office of Financial Aid | George Fox University