In order to maintain a normal lifestyle, single mothers have to shoulder a lot of responsibilities – running errands and spending time with their kids, besides having to work for long duration at office.

Statistically speaking, almost 38 out of every 100 single moms lie below the poverty level, which can be obviated if they possess a bachelor’s degree. For receiving proper education women like these, need financial aids to support themselves through undergraduate school. Thus, keeping in mind such conditions, certain college scholarships have been proposed to financially assist single mothers.

Finding Scholarships
Since scholarships are proposed and established by individuals or organizations, each has specific requirements that must be fulfilled. Your search for scholarships must be based on certain factors like your strengths and career. Scholarships can be classified depending on need, location, career and merit. Some of the most popular scholarships for single mothers programs are as follows:

-State and Community Scholarships: You can approach the local community and state owned institutions to gather information on such scholarships. The following is a list of the most prestigious state level scholarships:
(a) The Ruth Lister Scholarship offered by Alaska
(b) George Snow Scholarship Fund offered by Florida
(c) Bobbe Browning Memorial Scholarship offered by California
(d) Cap and Gown Book Scholarship offered by New Hampshire

-National Scholarships: If you are a single mother, you are eligible to apply for these scholarships regardless of the state or place of your residence. A single mother can expect to get a national scholarship by only qualifying certain requirements. Some of the most reputed national scholarships are:

(a) The Jeanette Rankin Foundation: If you are a single mother, aged over 35 years and pursuing a bachelor’s degree, technical or vocational course, you may apply for this scholarship program.
(b) Soroptimist Women’s Opportunity: This organization provides financial aids to almost 1000 single mothers, by giving away over 1.5 million dollars annually. A single mother in financial crisis needs to be enrolled in a skills or undergraduate degree program in order to be a recipient of this scholarship.
(c) The Women’s Opportunity Award: This scholarship award provides $2000 cash aids to single mothers who are the primary earners to sustain their family. This award is specifically given away to women who are pursuing additional training and education and want to make an improvement of their financial condition.
(d) The Patsy Takemoto Mink Education Foundation: This foundation selects 5 single mothers every year to give away a yearly scholarship in the form of $3000. The eligibility criteria that need to be fulfilled by the applicants are: must be at least 17 years of age, must be in financial crisis and must be enrolled for a vocational or degree program.

-Career Based Scholarships: Those career oriented single mothers who are interested in pursuing a career in various fields like teaching and nursing can apply for such scholarships. Some of the career based scholarships are:
(a) Project Working Mom: By availing this scholarship, working single mothers can get the unique opportunity to complete their school education with full financial aid.
(b) The Teacher Education Assistance for College and Higher Education Scholarship
(c) Chances Scholarship Program: This scholarship program provides up to $ 16000 annual scholarships to single mothers who want to pursue a career in nursing.
(d) Bright Horizons Family Solutions: If you are a single mother who is pursuing a degree in childhood education, this scholarship program is tailor made for you.

You can avail the best available ‘scholarships for single mothers‘ by following the compact listing of scholarship-positions.

Benefits of Scholarships
A good thing about scholarships is that you can avail innumerable scholarships while pursuing your education. As such one can expect to get scholarships for textbooks, tuition, housing and transportation, everything during the course of a single semester!

Debjani Goswami

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