In addition to offering scholarships, the WRC helps to connect you to other education funding resources in our community. We want to help you maximize the financial support you receive for college and technical school programs.
Please see below for local college scholarship opportunities.
GRANTS:
Complete the FAFSA (Free Application for Federal Student Aid) to receive federal Pell grants and Florida state grants.
WORKFORCE SCHOLARSHIPS
CareerSource Suncoast offers funding for targeted high demand programs with approved colleges and training institutions: https://careersourcesuncoast.com/scholarship/
PRIVATE LOCAL SCHOLARSHIPS:
Women’s Resource Center: https://www.mywrc.org/about/scholarship/
Community Foundation of Sarasota: https://www.cfsarasota.org/students/scholarship- opportunities
Gulf Coast Community Foundation: https://www.gulfcoastcf.org/scholarships
Manatee Community Foundation Scholarships
Manatee Education Foundation (Mostly focused on graduating high school students.)
Education Foundation of Sarasota County: https://launchyourplan.com/scholarships/ (Mostly focused on graduating high school students.)
Additional Scholarship Resources
FASTWEB hosts more than 1.5 million scholarships that provide more than $3.4 billion in funding. Once you create a profile, the site’s search feature will help you find the most accurate matches that fit your needs. Your personal profile is how the site helps you find pretty much exactly what you’re looking for.
You can then also see all the scholarships you applied for, or may want to apply to in the future. They also have “contests” that you can enter monthly or weekly to win money.
While the College Board is known for its college-readiness tests, it also has an arm that focuses on scholarships. Big Future hosts scholarships, as well as other financial aid and internship information from more than 2,200 programs — totaling nearly $6 billion. In order to get the most accurate search results, it’s critical to fill out as many details as you can in the profile that’s used for searching.
Formerly known as College Prowler, Niche is a great tool that can help you find colleges AND money. It’s organized into categories that make it pretty easy to find what you’re looking for — allowing users to search by interest, career, major and other areas.
Niche also has some contests to enter. niche.com/colleges/scholarships/
Scholarships.com hosts one of the largest scholarship databases out there and it’s updated on a daily basis. According to the site, “With more than 2.7 million scholarship and grant
opportunities worth more than $19 billion, just about everyone is bound to find something.”
It’s easy to browse by category, but the best way to take advantage of what the site has to offer is to make a personal profile, which will allow you to find the most exhaustive lists of opportunities available to you.
SallieMae is a well known education and student loan provider. The site’s College Planning page has a scholarship portal where you can search based on your field of study, hobbies and other parameters. Create a personal profile in order to get the most accurate matches that fit your needs.
salliemae.com/college–planning/tools/scholarship–search/
Are you looking for the right scholarships to help pay for your education? The Education Foundation of Sarasota is here to help. On this page, you can search their database of scholarships that fit your unique needs and experiences.
edfoundationsrq.org/scholarships/
Cappex hosts a database of more than $11 billion in scholarship opportunities. Once you create a personal profile, you can search for opportunities that directly match your strengths and skills.
Plus, Cappex has a tool that will calculate your odds of getting into a certain college before you even apply.
Unigo hosts millions of available scholarships and makes it easy to search by type, including athletic scholarships, college-specific scholarships, company-based scholarships, minority scholarships, major-specific scholarships, state-specific scholarships and more. You can search by category or create a personal profile to get more specific results that match your needs. Unigo also offers scholarship contests and sweepstakes.
Peterson’s hosts $10 billion in scholarship opportunities and provides information to help you in your search. Once you fill out a short survey, you can filter your search results so they’re tailored to your specific needs. The site also allows users to search by a variety of different topics, college types and personal details — in order to give you the best results.
petersons.com/scholarship–search.aspx
US Dept of Labor According to the official Student Aid website, this free tool is a great resource for students to search more than 7,500 scholarships, grants and other various types of financial aid award opportunities.
Look through the site’s entire inventory of scholarships, arranged in order of closest deadline. Narrow your list with a “search by keyword” option: Just enter a keyword about the type of award you’re looking for. Use the filters to see opportunities for only certain types of awards, locations, level of study, and more.
American Association of University Women – Manatee County Branch
Scholarship Grants/Funds for Advanced Studies
The Scholarship System
D.A.R. (Florida) This organization awards scholarships for a variety of careers for women https://www.dar.org/national–society/scholarships/