Solving the Low Scholarship Fund Utilization Problem

Campuses often struggle to fully utilize all of their available scholarship funds, especially those with restrictive criteria. Underutilization can lead to stewardship issues when donors learn that their scholarship gift has gone unused, sometimes for years at a time.

The number of applicants competing for scholarship awards is usually the key factor in determining how successful a campus is in utilizing their scholarship funds. Below are a few common issues that reduce applicant participation and fund utilization:

1. Scholarship opportunities are hard to find – Campuses may have scholarships listed on dozens of college, departmental, and program websites, making the search process incredibly time consuming and frustrating for students.
2. Scholarship applications are redundant and time consuming – Each scholarship fund may have a different application process, with each application requiring very similar information. Students become disenfranchised when they are asked to complete the same application information over and over again, resulting in low completed application numbers.
3. The right student is hard to find – A number of disparate applicant pools are created across campus because each scholarship is awarded separately. A qualified student for a particular scholarship award may exist, however, with no effective way to share applications across campus, the student is never identified.

Solving this problem all comes down to simplification. Providing students with one streamlined application process that automatically matches them against every scholarship for which they are eligible makes the burden on them lighter, resulting in more completed applications. And, it makes your job easier by providing you with a larger pool of qualified applicants in a coherent format.

The result is a dramatically simplified process that increases competition for awards and improves fund utilization.