Can I Automatically Renew Scholarships Each Year?

Some 15 months to two years before they will even graduate from high school, college-bound students will be filling out applications for various colleges, as well as for scholarships, grants, loans, financial aid and other funds to defray the expense of their education. If students could automatically renew scholarships each year, they could at least look forward to a college career free of red tape.

But it won’t turn out that way for many of them. A student who asks, "Can I automatically renew scholarships each year?" is guaranteed to get the same answer from any guidance counselor or college advisor: "It depends." And that would definitely be the right answer, because it really does depend on the individual scholarship grantor.

Some scholarships that are offered at the department or institution level by both public and private colleges actually do automatically renew each year. Even then, of course, the renewal may be dependent upon a number of factors, such as maintaining a certain grade point average (GPA), earning a particular number or kind of credits, keeping a spotless disciplinary record, participating in specific extracurricular activities, etc.

However, if there are federal funds involved in any of the student’s scholarships, primary or otherwise, then the application for that particular award may have to be redone every year. It is certainly true that the financial aid document known as the FAFSA (Free Application for Federal Student Aid) needs to be done every year. This is because a student’s Expected Family Contribution (EFC) may change depending on increases or decreases in family income and/or assets. Not just the government, but any funding source that would just automatically renew scholarships each year could end up spending too much or too little for their programs.

Of course, there are also scholarships from private sources — corporations, unions, foundations and so forth — that can have as many conditions and regulations as any federal aid application. Changes in anything from family finances to student performance can trigger a request for students to renew their applications even when they are not normally required.

In addition to the academic workload of their junior and senior years, college-bound high school students have a tremendous amount of research to do before final decisions are made. Some decisions will be made by them and their families (the school, their major) while some decisions will be made about them, by schools and scholarship judges. As always, planning is important, as is organization. And keeping good notes and records is a must.

Colleges and other scholarship grantors do try to make the application process easier on the students. Of course, it will never be changed in any way that would affect the ability of judges to make the best decisions for their institutions, as well as for the students. Some colleges now automatically consider students for every possible and appropriate scholarship available from their institution, saving considerable time, effort and even cost for all involved.

If there is a way that students, schools and scholarship-granting organizations (and their judges) can streamline and accelerate the application process, it is certain that someone is looking into it. Even with computers being used everywhere these days, it hasn’t kept the college and scholarship application process from being among the biggest paperwork generators of modern times. And is an entire application, every page of it, really necessary every year if little or no information in it has changed?

Perhaps one day, students will automatically renew scholarships each year based on information that is updated monthly or quarterly and submitted electronically. We used to hear about the "paperless office," and it's a sure bet that students, judges and college administrators involved with scholarships would welcome a paperless application process.

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