Undergraduate Scholarships – Some Basic Questions

Introduction: What is a Scholarship

Undergraduate scholarship is a package of financial aid, a back-up meant for the undergraduate scholars. Only deserving students, selected on the basis of some well defined grounds, are entitled to receive scholarships. A scholarship may be national or international and even just regional depending on the policy of the agency offering it. Any scholarship in any field of study is ordinarily viewed as recognition of merit and/or some monetary assistance to a deserving scholar coming from a relatively weaker section.

In case the scholar does not, in fact, need monetary help, it is an official recognition of his merit; and in the second case, it is an appreciation of his merit as well as a kind of social measure so that a relatively underprivileged student too can continue studies without much worry about financial constraints. The attitude has a long term social implication. The standard norm is that scholarships are awarded to the full time undergraduate students of any officially recognized subject.

How Does a Scholarship Differ from Other Helps?

Social help and encouragement for good students and studies exist in many forms. Meritorious students are normally appreciated worldwide. Individual helps may come from different sources; they too contribute to the cause of education. However, individual help, or one offered by any trust – monetary and otherwise – often are regulated by specific principles or guidelines and thereby more restrictive by nature. A bank loan too is considered a help to a student; but it is strictly conditional – loan is always refundable; a scholarship is not. A scholarship, at best, sometimes may demand some ‘service’ from the recipient, but never the amount given to the scholar.

How Many Types of Scholarships are There?

There is no possible answer to this question. Any number can be the obvious answer. The advanced countries have more scholarship types. A scholarship may offer a package that may cover only the tuition fees or often it may cover other expenses as well. A scholarship can just be for a single semester or for a year and for even the whole period of a specific course of study.

What Are Basic Eligibility Conditions for Receiving Under Graduate Scholarship

The first widely accepted condition for getting a scholarship is obviously merit. Since it is an incentive to higher studies, its beneficiaries must be more than average students in terms of academic attainment. However, all over the world, there are thousands of scholarships clearly marked with specific requirements and conditions. The specifications are often based on subject, locality, gender, class, creed, and even social positions as backward and/or minority status, etc. On principle, major scholarships have the basic conditions to judge before awarding a scholarship – level of financial hardship of the student concerned against the level of scholastic achievement. The more is the gap between the two; the better is the prospect for getting a scholarship.

Who Offers Under Graduate Scholarship?

A scholarship for undergraduate degrees is normally offered by government agencies, or college/university sources. A registered charitable foundation, professional organizations, a corporation or even an individual agency or trust can offer scholarships. Sometimes a scholarship is conditional and sometimes it can be entirely without condition. Sometimes philanthropic agencies and big industries too have a reserved quota of scholarship to offer.

Conclusion

The provision for undergrad scholarships, at least, highlights the social concern for education. The more is education becoming costly, the more is the relevance and utility of such social schemes. It is true that a vast area of population all over the world is struggling with the basic needs of life and many cannot even think of studies. So provisions for scholarships cannot be denied under the present circumstances. However, as many tend to think, it should also be made compulsory for recipients of scholarship to serve the cause of the underprivileged for a period after one achieves some attainment and social security thorough any form of scholarship.