Last year, Kearns High School received around 8 million dollars worth of scholarship money. Unfortunately, a lot of students are still not taking advantage of the resources that are given to them, and it causes them to have to work more (and harder) during their college years. The Cougar Claw did some digging to help the students of Kearns High understand where and how to get the newest and available scholarships.
“There’s just a lot of money out there, and a lot of students aren’t taking advantage of that,” Stated Keleni Mateaki, A counselor at Kearns High School. She also stated that, “We haven’t had a lot of students applying, and sometimes we’ll only have one student apply and they get the scholarship.” The good news is that there are a lot of resources available to help students take advantage of the scholarships. Right outside the counseling center there is a scholarship board. Mrs. Mateaki noted, “Usually every month we try to update our scholarship board, and so we put the latest scholarships that might expire that month.” A lot of times a student just needs to scan the Qr code, and it will take them straight to the scholarship application.
There are also scholarship websites listed on the school’s web page: Keys to success, Going Merry, etc. “Going merry is one I use often, if you go to the Kearns High counseling page it will show you all the different websites that you can search, It’s just a simple scholarship search.” Mrs. Mateaki mentioned. One of the websites that Kearns likes to promote is Keys to Success, “The perk of that one [Keys to success] is that you can get points. So, if you apply for a scholarship, let your counselor or a teacher know and then we can give you points which give you gift cards.” Mrs. Mateaki remarked. Also, if the student knows what colleges they want to go to, they could go to that school’s website and find information on all the different scholarships that are available for that school. They could have scholarships based on a specific department. For example, if they wanted to get a specific degree in Stem, they could find a scholarship specific to them.
It is possible to receive scholarships based on the student’s athletic level, even if the college they want to enter is not a D1 school. “A lot of our students get football scholarships, I know some students get basketball scholarships,” remarked Mrs. Mateaki. All public universities in Utah have a program called the Utah Promise that will help students in financial need, so if the student has a 3.2 gpa and they are fast and eligible, there is a chance they will receive the statewide scholarship. So, if you have an opportunity to receive a scholarship, it is best to take it.