What is an Endowed scholarship?

Endowed scholarships also are known as Named scholarships or Memorial scholarships. It is basically to honor the donor's loved one or the donor himself.

The common questions that arise while searching for the scholarships are What is Endowed scholarship? How does it work? What is the difference between regular and Endowed scholarship? and Why you should choose an Endowed scholarship? In this article, we will dig deeper into this topic and try to find an answer to these questions.

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What is a Regular scholarship?

A regular scholarship is a financial aid provided to students to pursue further education without any financial barriers.

Your academic performance is what is considered as an important factor while providing the scholarships. The way it works is pretty simple, you directly receive money to pay for your education annually.

The Regular scholarship is a one-time annually given money. To continue the sponsorship for the next year, you should reapply again as some scholarships are renewable.

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How is Endowed Scholarship Different?

Endowed scholarship works in a completely different way. This type of funding helps many generations of students. In simple, a bulk amount will be sent to the university to help their students pay for their studies.

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Regular vs Endowed Scholarship

Either regular scholarships or endowed scholarships are the best way to help out students in need by providing them financial aid. But, they both are not similar, they function in completely different ways. 

Regular Scholarship	Endowed Scholarship
Money should be provided each year separately if they have to continue the scholarship.	It is a one-time commitment.
The money provided is directly spent on a student’s education.	The money provided is invested and the profit out of it is used as a scholarship.
Non- replenishable	Replenishable
Not a permanent fund, It should be renewed every year.	Permanent fund

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Permanent Gift?

Unlike the regular scholarship which exhausts after a year, Endowed scholarship lasts forever. As the money provided by the donor is not directly provided to the students and only the profit of invested money is provided, You will get funding until or unless the investment becomes a loss, which is the very rare case.

So, an Endowed scholarship is seen as a permanent and never-ending gift to provide students.

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How should Students apply?

These scholarships are provided to students through their colleges. Ask your faculties for more details regarding applying for the scholarship.

There are need-based and merit-based scholarships if you have manages to maintain a high GPA. Also, check if they provide scholarships based on your location. Endowed scholarship should be applied during a particular time of the year. Keep in contact with the key person responsible for it and apply it as soon as it opens.

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What Does a 'Letter of Intent' Mean?

While you provide an endowed scholarship amount to the college, you should also submit a letter of intent. Letter of intent should contain details like your scholarship's name, the amount you endow, Eligibility criteria, how your money should be used, any geographic preferences among students, need-based or merit-based one.

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Colleges With the Highest Endowment

Here is the list of the top 10 colleges with the highest Endowment is invested. 

• Harvard University

• Yale University

• University of Texas System Office

• Stanford University (CA)

• Princeton University

• Massachusetts Institute of Technology

• University of Pennsylvania

• Texas A & M University, College Station

• University of Michigan, Ann Arbor

• Columbia University in the City of New York (NY)