Have you looked at the application forms for some of the $10,000 scholarships out there? You are looking at essay upon essay, references, proof of community involvement, leadership and outstanding grades! If that isn’t your child, point them at the easy scholarships. They are out there.

Philanthropic organizations have noticed the disparity between what college costs and what your average family can afford. Even if you are well off and you and your spouse earn $80,000, you still need help. The guidelines seem to think that you can afford to pay about $35,000 per year out of that for college. What world do they live in? Not mine. So if you didn’t raise a super achiever and you still want your child to go to college, here are some easy scholarships I discovered.

First of all there are the weird scholarships. These are the ones where some rather unique organization has decided to offer a scholarship to help raise their public profile, a winning idea for everyone. One of my favorites is the Starfleet Academy Scholarship. If you are a fan of Star Trek, go check it out at http://academy.sfi.org/student/scholarship.shtml. You must be a member in good standing for at least a year before applying, so don’t waste any time. Look at it now, this is a $500 scholarship.

Other easy scholarships are the ones offered by universities for student athletes. For example Texas Southern University offers bowling scholarships for female athletes who have at least a 21 on the ACT or 1400 on the SAT. That isn’t too hard to achieve. Apply at www.tsu.edu. They supplement their sports scholarships with academic scholarships to make them more enticing. Not all athletic scholarships are for football and basketball even though it may seem like it. If you are really good at a less popular sport, your chances at a scholarship may be very good. Search for colleges based on your sport to see what your options may be.

If those aren’t easy enough, try for some truly easy scholarships. These are the ones where you sign up for a drawing and if you are lucky, you have your college funds. One of these is at the student loan network at http://www.studentloannetwork.com/10K/. They have monthly scholarship drawing. Of course, your chances at these depend on the number of participants which can be quite high. Someone has to win. It might as well be you. I have seen similar drawings at local bank branches. Keep your eyes open and don’t skip an opportunity to enter one of these. The smaller the circle of potential winners the better.

The vast majority of easy scholarships seem to require essays. These can be short 3 sentence essays to 10 page short stories. Your best bet on those is to find some that you feel passionate about. If you like the idea of a short essay, try http://www.microessayscholarships.com. This site awards a $1000 scholarship every three months. The majority of essay contests appear to require 600 to 1500 word essays. If you enter just one essay contest per week, that gives you 52 chances to win a scholarship. Not bad.

Even if you go with the non essay scholarship applications, it should be worth your time to fill out at least one entry per week. Remember, the more contests you enter, the higher the chances of you winning one. Keep your eyes on any local opportunity that arises. After all, if you live in a town of 10,000, how many of those residents could possibly be ready to enter college? Your chances go way up.   You may even get a consolation prize just for entering. Are you going to turn down a free pizza?