If you win scholarship money but don't know where you will be attending school yet, can you still save it?

Question

For example, if you are an undergraduate going to an in-state school for free and you want to start saving for a more expensive grad school when you are a sophomore, obviously you wouldn't know which school you would send the money to because you haven't applied/been accepted yet. Can you still keep this scholarship money, in an account or something? Thanks!

Answer 1

Every organization that awards scholarships has its own rules and regulations - it's not as if there's a law.

As a general rule of thumb, scholarships are awarded for a specific academic year - so for instance, a student might be awarded a scholarship for the 2008-2009 academic year. In most cases, the recipient is not permitted to elect to "bank" that award for another school year.

Because the money is meant strictly to assist with educational expenses, most scholarship awarding organizations want to ensure that the money is spent for the purpose for which it was granted. Allowing students to bank the money would create too much temptation for those scholarship funds to be spent for "other" purposes.

So, generally, no. It is unlikely that you would be able to "hold onto" scholarships for use during another academic year. However, these policies are determined by the organization that awards the scholarship, so you would have to check with them directly to find out their specific rules.

Good luck!