What The Tech: App Of The Day, Scholly

CHARLOTTE, NC — College freshmen are on campus, high school seniors are in class and parents are either paying college tuition are getting ready for it.

According to Educationdata.org, The average cost of 4-years at an in-state public university is now $102,828 including books, fees, and room and board. That leaves most students and their parents desperately seeking scholarships to pay for education.

There are millions of dollars in scholarships available but how do you find them? The school guidance counselor can help but there are thousands of scholarships they may not know about.

Fortunately, there’s an app to help search.

“Scholly” was developed by a former student who received a combined $1.3 million dollars in college scholarships. Much of it was scholarships few people knew about. He took what he learned and built the app. Here’s how it works:

“Scholly” requests lots of information on the student. Personal information, educational history (grades, GPA, etc), religion, where parents work, and over a hundred other questions. You don’t have to answer them all but if you do, the app matches the student with available scholarships with the criteria they meet.

There are scholarships only for students of divorced parents, students whose parents work at The Home Depot, faith-based scholarships, and dozens more that eligible students may not know about.

“Scholly” shows the requirements and the student can apply within the app. “Scholly” includes links that take the student directly to the organization or business website offering the scholarship.

I found most available scholarships available now are in the $500-$1,000 range. Students applying for and receiving multiple scholarships can combine them to pay for tuition, room and board, and books.

The app sends notifications when new scholarships become available. Scholly is free to download so you can see how many scholarships are available to you, but a subscription is required to see all of the information and apply.

August begins scholarship season for high school seniors. Best to get started now.