Home from school? Kansas State Treasurer offering new tool to help students find money for higher ed
With hundreds of high school students home from school for the time being, we at the Kansas State Treasurer’s Office have a great idea of something productive they can do with their time that will help parents and students alike. College deadlines are looming and with that comes the cost considerations for paying the high price of a post-secondary education. We are thrilled to announce to high school students and their parents that we have partnered with Sallie Mae to provide an exceptional way to find thousands of scholarships quickly and easily on our new Kansas ScholarShop website.
Fortunately, we were able to test out the system at a Kansas high school back in February, before schools were suspended for COVID-19, and it is now ready to be used by students statewide. At our first Kansas ScholarShop launch event, hundreds of Washburn Rural High School students found the site very easy to navigate and after quickly and easily setting up their profile, were able to get right to finding scholarships that they qualified for.
The tool is simple, after creating a personal profile and selecting areas of interest, the student is able to access over 5-million scholarships worth over $24-billion from Sallie Mae’s expansive nationwide database.
Aside from the benefit of having such a large number of easily searchable scholarships in one place, another unique feature of this tool is how customizable the search can be to fit the interests and talents of the student. After selecting from a long list of interests, skills, etc, the scholarship search engine then lists the scholarships which best match the student, tailored specifically to the student’s deepest passions, skills, and hobbies.
The Kansas ScholarShop is our proactive response to the crisis of student loan debt in America. We know the cost of college can be daunting, but we also know there are ways to pay for post-secondary education that don’t require going into debt.
It is our goal to bring the Kansas ScholarShop to as many high schools as we can with the hopes of opening up a world of scholarship opportunities our students may not have known about otherwise. We want all students to have the opportunity to reach their educational goals and scholarships can be a great help.
We hope this tool will be a great resource for our Kansas students and a fun and engaging way to pass the time while so many are home from school. We encourage students, parents, high school counselors and the like to utilize the website and feel free to reach out to us with questions. For more information on Kansas ScholarShop or to start your search for student scholarships, please visit our website https://kansasstatetreasurer.com/scholarshop.html
-Jake LaTurner
Kansas State Treasurer