U.S. institutions of higher education offer a variety of financial aid to students.
Athletic Scholarship :
Athletic scholarships are financial aid awarded by institutions to student athletes with the goal of improving the performance and competitiveness of their athletic program.
The institutions grant a scholarship budget to each athletic program so that through the work team, known as the athletic staff, they can offer athletic scholarships to student athletes.
In other words, the athletic staff has complete freedom to use that budget as it pleases.
The key is to understand that the student athlete has to be fully deserving of that athletic scholarship percentage. Simply put, the athletic level of the student athlete has to be commensurate with his or her athletic scholarship percentage.
It must be understood that each institution has a different budget, due to the fact that each university has a different cost. In addition to this, it also depends on the regulatory body in which they compete, because each body allows each institution a certain amount of athletic scholarships per team, for example in NCAA Division 1, each soccer program has 9.9 scholarships per team. Therefore, there are 9.9 athletic scholarships to distribute among all team members.
As we said earlier, the person who has the power to manage the budget can distribute these scholarships as he or she pleases. Most often this person is the coach of the program. The coach can offer full scholarships, where the student would not have to pay anything. It is a bit risky to use full scholarships on a single athlete, but coaches offer them if they believe this athlete will have an immediate positive impact on the program and improve the competitive level.
Academic or merit based scholarship:
All American institutions award academic scholarships. All American institutions have different admissions processes and different budgets, therefore, each of these institutions awards different academic scholarships.
How do I get an academic scholarship? Academic scholarships, as the name implies, are earned through good academic grades.
School grades
Toefl or Duolingo test scores
SAT scores
As we said before, all institutions are different, therefore there are some institutions that offer academic scholarships for a certain score in the toefl, others that award academic scholarships for a high GPA (grade point average) in college.
Like athletic scholarships, academic scholarships can be full or partial. The better the high school GPA, standardized test scores, or in the case of a student entering college in the country of residence, college grades, the better the chances.
International Scholarships
International scholarships are financial aid that some universities may offer to foreign students. All institutions have different scholarship programs, so international scholarships do not exist at many institutions. In fact, in order to benefit from some type of international scholarship, you must meet the requirements established by the institution, that is, just because you are an international student does not mean that you will receive a scholarship. In addition, many universities have international scholarships for a specific country or region.
Government Financial Aid: FAFSA
The U.S. government offers financial aid to American students so that they can go to college.
To fully understand the financial aid offered by the U.S. government, it is important to understand what the FAFSA is.
The FAFSA is a free application for federal student aid. The FAFSA is a form that helps students get financial aid from the government.
Institutional Financial Aid :
Some institutions offer financial aid to students to help them go to college for both U.S. and international students.
To obtain this financial aid, students must complete a form very similar to the FAFSA where they must include information about their parents’ income in order to determine the amount of aid.
Not all universities have these financial aid programs, usually the most prestigious universities with the highest budgets.
Division 3 or IVY League colleges that do not have athletic scholarships usually have these financial aid programs.
