A Scholarship Search for the Truly Creative
Perhaps you are a student more interested in the arts than in your textbooks. Perhaps your grades were not the best throughout high school. Does this mean that you won’t be able to find a college appropriate to your future goals and dreams? Absolutely not, there are hundreds of schools with a focus on the arts of all kinds. Students can study the culinary arts, dancing, literature, poetry, playwriting, even sculpture or basket making regardless of a low GPA.
So that’s great news, but the next question is “are there scholarships available for a creative student”? The answer to that question is yes! There are so many unique ways to find scholarships, prizes and grants in the creative arts studies that a scholarship search may turn up an overwhelming number of opportunities.
It is important, when conducting a scholarship search for the creative arts, to be very specific about your particular field of interest, and your field of study. Simply typing in “arts scholarships” in a search engine, or looking it up in an index will not give complete results. In fact a general search may only yield the most competitive and largest awards. There are also hundreds of smaller private and corporate scholarships for those studying a creative art.
There are also some truly unique opportunities, and a very specific search can turn these up as well. For example, everyone is familiar with the famous silvery gray DUCT tape. The company makes a five thousand dollar scholarship prize available each year, but not to a student studying building, electrical, engineering or plumbing, but to a student who is interested in the fashion industry! That’s right; they give the prize to a student who crafts a complete prom ensemble for a couple out of the tape. Named the “Stuck at the Prom” contest, it is open to all students, but it turns up in many fashion students’ scholarship searches.
Are there other places besides a search engine to do a scholarship search? Of course, there are:
• High school, college or university arts departments
• Professional groups and organizations
• Arts festivals, contests and workshops
• Community and civic organizations
• Local and national businesses
• Charitable groups and foundations
• A student’s, or their parent’s, employer
The best place to begin is at a school. Here there are people interested in the arts and who make it their business to know about the opportunities available to students. A guidance office or department head may direct a student to a group or foundation that makes regular funding, or they may know about a high school or college program available to arts students.
Other groups, individuals, foundations and organizations could include local writer’s groups, dancer’s workshops, photography clubs, national arts foundations and even a state or national competition. A good scholarship search will turn up an amazing number of financial opportunities for an arts student, and the awards can provide tuition, supplies and cost of living throughout college.