A variety of national and local scholarships are available for Bellevue East students looking at college for their futures.

Scholarships are very important for people who want to go to college. According to Business Insider, a news website that covers things like finance, business, and more, annual in-state tuition is over $11,000, not including room and board. College costs can add up quickly, giving aspiring students a lot of debt. 

“That’s how you pay for school,” counseling secretary Malinda Hadley said. “That way you are not in student loan debt, and if you apply for enough then they can actually pay you to go to school.”

Many available scholarships are not hard to apply for to get a lot of money. The competition might seem high, but if you apply for both local and national scholarships, you can earn a lot of money combined. 

“So far I have been granted $32,000, a pretty good amount, out of state for Kansas which is the college I’m going to is about $28,000 a year,” senior Aaron Gilley said. “If it doesn’t even go towards your tuition, it’s still money that you pocket.”

Students are encouraged to apply to many different types of scholarships, and one way to do that is through the comprehensive packet, which allows students to apply for over 40 scholarships. The packet came out early October, and students are expected to turn it in by December 20. 

“They all compete for the scholarships, there is a packet [that] explains all the scholarships and what they all entail,” Hadley said. “They’re not going to be able to apply for all of them, but a great majority of them they will be able to.”

The number of scholarships available and ready to apply for may overwhelm students. The Bellevue East counselors can help students get scholarships that are right for them and their future.

“I would say in the counseling office we have a lot of students that ask these types of questions, I would love to see some younger students start asking these types of questions,” counselor Kacie Anderson said. “But typically when a student comes in we kind of ask them what their goals are, where they want to go, and then that kind of determines how we help them, what scholarships we point them to.”

People who go to college go for a variety of different reasons, and plan to enter into many different careers. Gilley, for example, plans to go to Kansas University to study sports medicine. Some people go to college because they aspire to be like their parents; Gilley, on the other hand, is inspired for a different reason.

“When my parents graduated high school, it was with a GED,” Gilley said. “So my parents always pushed me to be better than them, and always said that school was so important…I think carving my way through college is what’s best for me, and it’s going to elevate what I want to be in the future.”

While college and scholarships can be beneficial for many people, college is not best for everyone. The counselors can give great help for students wishing to get scholarships, but they are just as helpful in exploring different career paths and other forms of secondary education.

“I think students should first consider what they want for their life and where they see themselves, and if college will help them get there, I think that college would be a great option,” Anderson said. “But I also think students should look at college as like all the other types of educations that are out there because there are two year degrees, there are trade schools, and I think our definition of post high school education should change because I don’t think college is the answer for everybody, and that’s okay, and they can still live a very successful life.”