by Steven Tagle
How to Find Community-Based Scholarships
The vast majority of first-time scholarship searchers believe they must either be brilliant or belong to a narrowly defined subset of ethnic, racial, religious, or financial communities in order to qualify for merit-, need-, or identity-based scholarships.
I prefer to think of the creators of scholarship opportunities as generous entities wishing to support people based on their own sense of community. Communities consist of people who share common experiences, interests, and professional and/or personal goals, as well as larger social beliefs or value systems.
Each scholarship defines the community it serves in its own way. As you search for scholarships, you must learn the right search terms to connect with organizations you identify with. Once you have a sense of the true breadth of definitions for the term “community,” you will find that you belong to several different kinds of communities – and within each one, there may be an organization that wishes to help you achieve your goals.
In this blog post, I share two examples of different kinds of communities, as defined by scholarship-providing organizations, and scholarships provided to those communities.
Table of Contents:
- Heritage Scholarship: ¡Lánzate!/Take Off!
- Regional Scholarship: Ralph Hale and Martha L. Ruppert Educational Scholarship
Heritage Scholarship: ¡Lánzate!/Take Off!
Each year, Southwest Airlines and the Hispanic Association of Colleges and Universities (HACU) partner to offer up to 185 undergraduate and graduate students free flights to and from their university.
- Type of Community: Heritage
- Award Amount: Up to eight one-way e-passes that cover airfare to and from university
- Deadline: June 15, 2025 (applications will reopen in 2026)
- Notable Eligibility Requirements:
- Students must be enrolled in a college/university at least 200 miles from their permanent home.
- Students must have a minimum 2.5 GPA.
- Eligibility for the program will not be limited by race, ethnicity, or national origin.
¡Lánzate!/Take Off! is one of a collection of scholarships housed under the HACU, which partners with businesses such as Ford, Oracle, and Miller Lite to distribute funding for Hispanic communities across the United States. The organization offers awards of all sizes, including the $5,000 Café Bustelo El Café del Futuro Scholarship Program.
HACU is not the only organization that supports the Hispanic community. Other organizations include the Hispanic Scholarship Fund, The Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund, and Great Minds in STEM.
Regional Scholarship: Ralph Hale and Martha L. Ruppert Educational Scholarship
This scholarship awards 30 scholarships of up to $10,000 each to students from three California counties who are “late bloomers.” The Rupperts define late bloomers as students who show academic promise and improvement during the last years of high school or in the first few years of college but are unlikely to receive other scholarships because of a low GPA.
- Type of Community: Regional
- Award Amount: Up to $10,000
- Deadline: February 27, 2026, at noon PST
- Notable Eligibility Requirements:
- Maximum cumulative GPA of 3.3 on a 4.0 scale
- Graduating high school senior or graduate of a public or private high school in San Mateo County, San Francisco County, or Santa Clara County, California
- Planning to enroll or enrolled in two- or four-year college, university, or vocational school as a full-time student
- Demonstrates financial hardship and community involvement
I love this scholarship for a number of reasons. First, it has a maximum GPA as part of the eligibility requirement. The folks who created this award understand that education is a lifelong process of learning and growth, and they want to support individuals who understand that too. Many of my students talk themselves out of applying for scholarships because they think only the brightest, smartest, and most accomplished people win scholarship awards. One of the reasons I push students to identify the communities that they belong to, that they care about, and that care about them is because people give money away for all kinds of reasons. It is refreshing to know that there are people like the Rupperts who value process and personal growth over crowning achievements.
Second, this is a regionally focused scholarship. The Rupperts have decided to fund students from certain counties in California, and they’ve identified the Silicon Valley Community Foundation (SVCF) to house their scholarship. The SVCF administers several other scholarships that support California communities. When you search for giving organizations based on geographic or regional affiliations, you can think as broadly as country, coast, or state, and as narrowly as region, county, or city. Once you find an organization that houses a cluster of regionally based opportunities, chances are that you will be eligible for more than one of their listed scholarships.
These are just a couple of examples of community-based scholarship opportunities, but there are so many more! Which communities do you belong to? Which ones do you care about? Who do you think cares about you, and why? Start asking yourself these questions, and you will be well on your way to finding out about communities you never knew existed!
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