CELEBRITY SCHOLARSHIPS

by Willette Coleman

I can’t say it often enough, scholarships are ideal to pay for college or vocational training.  So, what’s more fun than getting FREE money from a celebrity?

Where to search

In addition to the Internet and your college or university, the Foundation Center (www.foundationcenter.org) is a good place to start.  Within its extensive data base, you can search by celebrity name and get a link to his/her foundation.  The Center’s headquarters is in New York City; field offices in Atlanta, Cleveland, San Francisco and Washington, DC.  Access to resources is free, including webinars on scholarships, when you physically (not virtually) go to one of the Center’s sites.  So, to find out if one of the Foundation Center’s over 450 Funding Information Networks is near you, look here.  Individuals who want to access the Center’s scholarship database at a public library or at home, must pay for a subscription. 

Specific Requirements

Celebrity scholarships, like most scholarships or grants, are geographic and criteria-specific.  Most are administered by nonprofit organizations or colleges.  For example, through i.am ESRI Scholarship and i.am.college track, singer, Will.i.am, offers 4-year college tuition specifically to Boyle Heights, CA students that have done “outstanding work with Geographic Information Systems (GIS) and mapping technology.”

The Michael Jackson Scholarship is administered though the United Negro College Fund www.uncf.org.  High school seniors must matriculate at a Historically Black College and University (HBCU) that is a member of the United Negro College Fund (UNCF).  Email Kenya Gray for current details.

The rap celebrity, Jay Z, “provides individual grants, paid directly to the educational institution, to qualifying students” through his Shawn Carter Foundation Scholarship.  Students can reapply yearly.   Click here for deadlines and details.

Former late night TV show host David Letterman’s the Letterman/Ball State University (BSU) Telecommunications Scholarship is open to full-time Telecommunications majors or minors in Muncie, Ind.  Click here for deadlines and details.

If you are a high school student graduating from a public school in Akron, Ohio, Labron James will pay for your college education to the University of Akron through his LeBron James Family Foundation.  Typically, your high school admissions officer should be able to provide you with information about this opportunity.  Click here for more information.

The Earvin "Magic" Johnson Endowed Scholarship Fund is being administered through South Carolina State University for "students seeking business degrees at the state-supported, historically black university in Orangeburg," slated for 2016-17.

John Lennon Endowed Scholarship for majors in music, dance, theater, or communications is offered through the BMI Foundation.   Click here for deadlines and details.

Alec Baldwin Drama Scholarship is administered though his alma mater, the Tisch School of the Arts at New York University (NYU).  Contact the school’s Office of Student Affairs at 212-998-1900 for deadlines and details.

Kevin Spacey’s Foundation offers scholarships through New York City’s Pace College and Regent’s University in London, England.  Click here for details.

Searching for money to pay for the education or training to realize your career dream is part of developing career life skills, which means time investment and sometimes wearisome factors.  It’s frustrating and disappointing to click on a link to a celebrity’s scholarship listed in directories like Fastweb, Scholarships.com, bigfuture.collegeboarrd.org, or Rentfinance.com only to get the message “Not Found,” “No such file” or it shows no recent activity.  For example, Alicia Keys and Cedric the Entertainer show no recent activity, yet they and the Seinfeld Scholarship Program (comedian Jerry Seinfeld) sponsored by the Seinfeld Family Foundation are still listed in online scholarship directories, such as Look to the stars.org. 

Nonetheless, as one excited recipient shared:  “By applying to many scholarships, I began to understand what colleges looked for in a student and what I needed to do to succeed.  In addition, the effort and hard work that was required of me to achieve success was worth it.  It takes drive and some hard work to win a scholarship (or anything for that matter) but it is definitely worth your time."  Also, see what scholarship recipient, Jonard, had to say.

~Tip~

If a scholarship’s deadline has passed, file it in your e-mail’s “Scholarships” folder and make a note to check back when the application is open again.

Wishing you magic, miracles, blessings and success!

Willette

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