For students of offline or online universities, differentiating between legitimate scholarship opportunities and scams can be sometimes a highly complicated task. Every year, numerous students and families fall victim to education grants scams, but there are steps you can take to ensure you won?t be one of them.
When conducting your offline or online degree scholarship search, never forget to keep an eye out for these scams, so you can protect yourself and your hard earned money.
Free seminars
This scam is often targeted at students of college degree online or offline programs who are looking for ways to secure funding. This is what happens ? you get an invitation through e-mail enquiring whether you?d be willing to attend a free seminar on the best ways you could get education grants.
But instead of offering info about how to get your traditional or online degree institution to offer you a scholarship, the presentation turns out to be a sales pitch trying to sell you insurance, annuity or investment products.
In certain cases, these seminars only try to con students into jumping onboard into overpriced student loans or expensive scholarship services.
But keep in mind one thing ? respectable offline or online universities will never ask you for money in return for a scholarship. That would be beside the point, wouldn?t it?
If you want to know how to get a bursary, do some research and be sure to read everything on the scholarship?s official page to get an idea of how to apply. ?Free? seminars aren?t the answer.
Sweeping claims
There?s a saying ?if something sounds too good to be true, it probably is?. You should let it sink in for a while. If you received a scholarship offer out of the blue that declares something along these lines ?You won?t be able to get such a scholarship anywhere else?, ?This scholarship if guaranteed or your money back? or ?Secure your scholarship now! We only need your bank account number? simply ignore it.
Scholarship offers don?t just ?happen?. In order to receive a proper scholarship, any respectable institution will ask you to submit an application. They won?t just award it to you, if you pay a small fee. It?s not how things work.
Scholarship programs for students of offline or online universities function in similar ways and they certainly won?t ask you to share their banking details with them.
Cash up front
You?ve finally zeroed-in a great college degree online or offline and now you?ve also stumbled upon a promising scholarship. The trouble is, it requires you to pay a so-called processing fee. Should you trust it? The answer is ? most certainly not.
As mentioned above, offline or online degree providers in good standing won?t ask for money before granting you a scholarship. Even if a processing fee doesn?t amount to much, you?ll still be losing time and money and for what ? you won?t be getting closer to getting your college degree online or offline.
You need to understand this before applying to any scholarships – an application requires you put in some effort while you gather the necessary documents demonstrating your financial need or grade point average. No one will award you cash in exchange for a ?small fee?. That?s just not how things work in the real world.