College scholarships for undergrad, law, and medical students: How and where to find them

Scholarship opportunities may seem abundant when you’re a high school senior. But you have to pay for your college education every year, so it's just as important to find scholarships for current college students as for incoming ones. Likewise, scholarships can ease the burden of paying for law school or medical school — and help to reduce the amount of student debt you’ll need to repay once you graduate.

Whether you’re a current undergraduate student or planning to attend law school or medical school, scholarships are available — if you know where to look. We’ve compiled a list of key tips to help you find the right scholarship to help fund your educational dreams.

Finding scholarships for current undergraduate students

Start with the FAFSA^®: As a first step, you should fill out the Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA^®) every year. This is the starting point to determine eligibility for federal grants as well as for scholarships offered by your college or university.

Even if you didn't qualify for aid the previous year, you should still complete the FAFSA, as your circumstances may have changed and some private scholarship grantors use FAFSA information, too.

Determine your qualifications: To make your scholarship search manageable, consider which factors may help you qualify for scholarships — and stand out from other applicants. For example, if you're a single parent studying nursing, you may discover there's specific aid available for various college costs. Other factors may include:

• Financial need
• Field of study
• Demographics, such as minority status
• Extracurricular talents or skills, like essay writing or video producing
• Transfer student status
• Academic achievement / merit scholarships
• Military affiliation

Sources of different scholarships for current college students: Organizations offering scholarships for current college students typically fall into three groups:

• Government: Federal, state, and even some local governments offer scholarships. The Department of Education gives away more than $120 billion a year in grants and other financing for students. These include Federal Pell Grants, scholarships for teachers, and grants for military service. State governments operate grant agencies to help students find scholarships, and many city and county governments also offer aid. Often, these scholarships base their awards on financial need, public service, or academic achievement.
• Businesses: Private businesses regularly provide new scholarships for current college students. These types of scholarships often tie back to the company's core mission or business. For example, Google™ offers scholarships for students studying computer science, while the Taco Bell Foundation™ awards scholarships based on videos students make about their life's passion.
• Nonprofits: Many nonprofit organizations offer scholarships, typically for students who show a commitment or interest in their mission. For example, the Earth Island Institute funds the Brower Youth Award for young leaders in the environmental movement.

Where to search for scholarships: Of course, you can go straight to an organization's website to learn about its scholarships for current college students. But using these tools can broaden your search to include opportunities you may have never known existed:

• Check out scholarship databases online: Unigo, FastWeb, Scholarships.com, the U.S. Department of Labor, and Scholarship America  are just a few of the options.
• Visit your school's student aid office: Their experts can help you find scholarships that fit your needs.
• Find your state grant agency: They may provide online or in-person resources to help you find scholarships for current college students like you.

Scholarships for law students

While lawyers earn an average annual salary of $120,910, they typically take on significant debt to complete law school — some 6 in 10 graduate with more than $100,000 in student debt.

If law school is your dream, you can help make it a reality by finding law school scholarships that’ll help defray the cost. Here are a few ideas for where to start:

• Check with your current school: The first place to look for law school scholarships is at your current university. Many law schools will offer funding to encourage you to enroll. For example, Texas Law offers scholarships starting at $1,000 to about 70 percent of its entering class. Similarly, New York Law offers its legal students scholarships ranging from $500 to $7,500.
  Don't just ask about law school scholarships, either. Some schools will offer a tuition discount for students who continue graduate school at their alma mater. Contact your school's financial aid office for a list of available aid, asking again mid-year to see if more aid opportunities became available.
• Consult local law groups: Many law firms offer private scholarship money ranging from $500 to $1,500. Talk with professional legal organizations in your area to learn about available local scholarships. This also presents a good opportunity to network with lawyers, which can lead to employment opportunities, internships, or mentorships. You can also do a web search for "city name" and "law group" and "scholarship" to discover funding opportunities.
• Use scholarship tools: There are many free scholarship search websites that’ll connect you to graduate scholarships and grants. Avoid sites that require you to pay for this information, since you can find the same listings for free. For example, Unigo, a scholarship search tool, lists over 107,000 scholarships for law students. Admission Dean also features hundreds of law scholarships. The Law School Admission Council (LSAC) provides resources for a wide range of scholarships for current students and diverse applicants.
• Look for membership scholarships: Member organizations also sponsor scholarships. For example, the American Bar Association's Law Student Division provides several legal scholarships to members valued at up to $15,000. Membership is free for law students and comes with other perks, including discounts for training and access to career resources.

Scholarships for medical students

Becoming a doctor is a calling that takes years of dedicated studying, ample compassion, and a lot of money — the average cost of tuition and fees for the first year of medical school for 2018-2019 was $36,755 for a public school and $59,076 for a private one.

Here are three ways to search for medical school scholarships to help make your studies more affordable:

Do a smart search

Using search engine tool like Niche is a great place to start. Find more opportunities by looking for more specific scholarships by your location, nationality, gender, faith, or field of medicine. You can find these opportunities by stringing different search terms together, like “medical school scholarships for Hispanics" or “New York pre-med scholarships." A few examples of targeted scholarships are:

• Lettie Pate Whitehead Foundation Scholarship for Christian women studying medicine in select states.
• Chinese American Medical Scholarship for Chinese American medical or dental students.
• Society for Maternal-Fetal Medicine Scholarship for individuals pursuing perinatal medicine and biology.

Attend a medical school with top funding

Students could improve their chances of getting medical school scholarships by applying to schools with the most funding. U.S. News lists the top 49 private medical school universities by the percentage of students receiving financial aid and the percentage of students who have to take out loans.

For example, at the School of Medicine at New York University’s Langone campus, 100% of students receive financial aid and only 6% of students take out loans.

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