COLLEGE LANGUAGE SCHOLARSHIPS

One of the great things about a language scholarship is that it is such a niche scholarship that you can combine it with a variety of other scholarships that might just pay for your entire education.

Let’s say you are an African-American woman with limited financial means and you are seeking a language scholarship. It’s quite possible you could be a quadruple scholarship threat.

Let’s say you demonstrate that you are indeed worthy of a language scholarship. Perhaps you qualify for the Critical Language Scholarship Program (CLS) that focuses on the thirteen critical need languages. These include Arabic, Azerbaijani, Bangla/Bengali, Chinese, Hindi, Indonesian, Japanese, Korean, Persian, Punjabi, Russian, Turkish and Urdu.

Once you have that language scholarship in your hip pocket you can look at some other scholarships you are likely to be eligible for. As an African-American woman you can qualify for many scholarship programs that were created just for you. The United Negro College Fund has been helping young African-Americans, including Martin Luther King Jr., go to college for more than sixty years.

As a woman you can look at all the special scholarships available to women, especially if you are interested in engineering, math, science or technology studies in addition to the course of study you will undertake as part of your language scholarship. Many of these fields are traditionally inhabited by men so there is an opportunity for women to get financial aid here.

A great first step is to fill out the FAFSA (Free Application for Federal Student Aid). If the combined income for you and your family is under $40,000 you probably qualify for at least a Pell Grant. These grants are the most common grants awarded by the federal government and can be worth up to $5,800. Despite recent cutbacks, the Pell Grant can still go a long way in helping to pay for a college education.

There are well over a million students studying a foreign language at American colleges at any given time. As the world becomes increasingly global speaking a foreign language can offer many perks, including a boost in income. That income boost is out there, but it’s just not as big as you think, usually starting at less than five percent even in a best case scenario.

Right about now you may be asking yourself what exactly is Urdu? Urdu is one of the two official languages of Pakistan and one of the many languages of India. It developed during Muslim invasions as a way for soldiers who spoke different languages to communicate with each other.

They say that when you learn a foreign language it can actually increase your language abilities in your native language. You can learn how to think in a different language, look at things from a fresh perspective. Who knows, you may even learn to speak Urdu.
Next time you go to your home town for a visit you will bring the Urdu perspective with you. And before all is said and done you will understand Urdu in a whole new way.

If you really think about it the student who works hard in school has been preparing for scholarship contests all his life.

Are you ready for the NEXT STEP!