Go to college. Skip the debt.
Real scholarship help from a college recruiter who has spent more than 30 years showing families how to pay for college — without signing up for loans they will still be paying off in their forties.
Get The Scholarship File
Hundreds of scholarships and college-planning resources in one free PDF.
Three things worth doing before you sign anything
Most families start looking at how to pay for college far too late. Here is where to begin.
Get The Scholarship File
Hundreds of scholarships, search sites, deadlines and a recommended reading list — compiled and updated by hand since 2006.
See what is insideUnderstand financial aid
What the FAFSA actually does, how aid packages are built, which deadlines matter, and the difference between money you keep and money you repay.
Learn the basicsChoose a college wisely
Cost, program, and fit — how to compare schools honestly before you fall in love with one you cannot afford.
Do your homeworkTwenty years of scholarship research, in one free PDF
It started as a folder of notes for students I met at college fairs. Now it is the single most-requested thing on this site — and it still costs nothing.
- Hundreds of scholarships, national and local, with links that actually work
- The scholarship search sites worth your time — and the ones that waste it
- Warning signs of scholarship scams, so you never pay to apply
- A recommended reading list on paying for college without loans
- Tips from guidance counselors I have met on the road for three decades
Why I started doing this
A young woman came up to my table at a college fair with her sister. I started telling the sister about graduating debt free and about The Scholarship File. She looked at me and said:
“I wish I had that scholarship file before I went to college. My student loan debt when I graduated two years ago was $72,000.”
She was living back at home, could not find work in her field, and her parents were helping her make a payment of nearly $700 a month. She had eight years left. I graduated with about $3,000 in loans. I could not imagine it.
Conversations like that one are why this site exists. Not every student can avoid borrowing entirely — but almost every student I meet is leaving money on the table because nobody showed them where to look, or when to start.
So here is the deal: everything on this site is free. There is no course, no membership, and nothing to buy. Take it, use it, and give it to your friends.
Where I work, and why I will still help you either way
I recruit for Bob Jones University in Greenville, South Carolina, and I am a 1982 graduate. I would be glad to tell you about it, and if you would like information I will send it. But I want to be straight with you about that from the start.
Everything on this site — The Scholarship File included — is yours regardless of where you end up going. I have been handing it to students at college fairs for twenty years without asking where they are applying, and I am not about to start now.
Answers to what students keep asking me
Scholarship Myths
Most people are badly misinformed about who qualifies for scholarships — and stand a far better chance than they think.
ReadStudent Loan Debt Is Strangling Gen X
Free-flowing student loans promised upward mobility. For a lot of borrowers they delivered decades of payments instead.
Read20 Tips for Filling Out Scholarship Applications
Small things that decide big awards — from the email address you use to the greeting you open with.
ReadI am Chuck Kittrell
I have been a college recruiter since March 1992. During the school year I am on the road almost every week, and I have spent a lot of nights in hotel rooms scouring the internet for scholarships to pass along to students.
Around 2006 I started collecting all of it into one document for students, parents and guidance counselors. I have emailed it to thousands of people since. This site exists so that many more can get to it.
If there is a way I can help — or you know of a scholarship that belongs in the file — I would genuinely like to hear from you.
The students who graduate debt free are the ones who started early.
Tell me where to send it and The Scholarship File is on its way. No cost, no catch, and it works no matter which college you pick.
Send me the file
Takes about twenty seconds.