What Are Student Grants?

Different types of financial aid are available to help students finance their education. The top 3 financial aid options are scholarships, grants, and bursaries. Today, we will look at what are student grants, how to find them, and how to apply.

What are Student Grants?

Wondering, “what are student grants?” Grants are a kind of financial aid offered based on a student’s ability to pay for their education or how much demand there is in the workforce for professionals with a certain skillset. Funds awarded through grants can be used for expenses necessary for school, such as paying for your rent, food, buying textbooks, or paying your tuition fees. Grants are never required to be paid back, so it is money given to you so that you can complete your education with practically no strings attached!

Some grants are also provided to students based on specialized work, as mentioned above. For example, if you are working on a project for your undergraduate program, you can apply for a grant program that offers grants to support projects in your field. If the grant committee thinks your project has potential, you may be awarded the grant. To find opportunities for grants like this, check out our programs at GrantMe.

How do you differentiate between scholarships and grants when both of them can be quite similar? Well, both of them provide monetary support for students. So, the main difference between them is that scholarships are mostly merit-based—candidates are judged based on their academics, community service, or other achievements. Grants, on the other hand, are judged based on the student's financial situation and are more project-based. Sometimes grants also take into account your parent's financial situation if you are applying for a grant after finishing high school.  

How do the donors decide a grant’s amount? Grant amounts are decided by taking into account the total cost for a program or project that the student will be completing. They may also take your living costs into account, which includes your food, rent, transportation, and the cost of buying supplies like books. Grant amounts are decided based on all of these factors to give students the best chance of success under their circumstances.

How to Find Student Grants

Now that we’ve answered “what are student grants”, it is time for us to learn how to find the perfect grant for you. The easiest way to find the right grant for you is to find out whether the educational institutions you are studying at offer any sort of grant program. To find out whether they offer student grants, you can go to their official website and check the financial aid section. If you are unable to find out if they have a student grant program, you can try giving the administrative office a call and asking them about student grant programs. They will be able to tell you if they offer any need-based financial aid.

Our suggestion to you is to look for institutions in your province because if you apply for grants in your province, then the chances of you winning them are greater. Resident students are given higher priority.

Grants are also available to college and university students. If you are struggling to pay for your education, you should find out about the student grant programs available at your university or college.

For example, some universities offer student research positions. In exchange for students researching for them, they will pay an amount to help the students pay for their education.   

Finding it a bit hard to find the perfect grant for you? Do not worry as GrantMe is here to make the process of finding and applying for student grants easy. All you need to do is request a scholarship assessment. We will match you with the scholarships and grants that you have the best probability of winning.

How to Apply for Student Grants

We know what are student grants and how to find the perfect student grants for you. Now we need to know how to apply for one. After you have found the right student grant program that matches all your needs, it is time for you to buckle up and start the application process.

The first thing you should do is find the application guidelines for the grant. The application guidelines will be available on the grant website. Students should check and read all of the information in the application guidelines thoroughly.

You may think all the application guidelines for grants are the same, but that is a misconception. Different grants have different guidelines. It is important that you know the eligibility requirements for the grant you are applying for because you do not want to apply to grants that you are not eligible for in the first place. This sort of thing will discourage you and drain your energy.

Take care to provide all the necessary documentation, otherwise your application will not be considered. Most grants require you to provide your high school transcripts and some form of documentation showing your parent's income. This is only if they need to know about your financial position. As grants are need-based scholarships, the lower the income of your parents, the larger the grant amount will be.

Make sure to know the deadline of your grant application as you want all of these documents ready to be attached with your application beforehand. Try to complete and submit the grant application a few days before the deadline, as you do not want to procrastinate and accidentally miss it.

Most grant applications will need to be submitted through an online portal. So, you must create an account on the application site. The steps for how to create an account to submit an application should be mentioned in the application guidelines. It is important for you to know how you will be submitting the grant application well before the deadline, as not all applications are submitted online. Sometimes applications must be mailed in, and you’ll want extra time to ensure it arrives before the deadline.

After submitting the application for the student grant program, it is time for you to wait for their verdict. Patience is key at this stage because the grant committee has to sort through hundreds of applications and choose a couple of handfuls of students as the winners. You should keep an eye on your email, as this is how you will be informed whether you have been awarded the grant or not.

Always be prepared for a follow-up interview because if you are shortlisted for the grant, the committee may want to see you in person to find out more about you and get to know the person they are awarding the grant to.

There are grants that are renewable after each year and grants that are one-time amounts. But you should keep in mind that even if you are awarded a grant the previous year, it is not 100% guaranteed you will be awarded the same grant next time.

To get help with the application process for grants, GrantMe has information about more than 1,000 scholarships from all over Canada in our database. When you request a scholarship assessment, we go through all the scholarships in our database to match the scholarships that you have the highest chances of winning. Not only this, but we also offer services and support like essay editing to help you with the applications for scholarships and grants.