Navigating College Affordability: Is BigFuture Scholarships a Legitimate Path to Funding Your Education?

Each student envisions a future brimming with possibilities after high school, shaped by their unique interests and aspirations. Finding resources that align with these individual paths is crucial. BigFuture emerges as a platform designed to personalize the education journey, encouraging students to dream big, explore exciting careers, and discover colleges that match their goals. But is the BigFuture Scholarship program a legitimate way to help make those dreams a reality?

What is BigFuture?

BigFuture is a College Board initiative aimed at assisting students in planning and preparing for college. The platform provides a wide array of resources, from exploring careers and finding colleges to understanding the costs associated with higher education and navigating financial aid options and scholarships.

BigFuture offers resources such as:

Career Exploration: Students can connect their interests and strengths to real job options, facilitating informed career decisions.
College Search: The platform allows students to find colleges based on criteria important to them, such as location, cost, and majors.
Financial Aid Information: BigFuture provides tools to understand college costs, financial aid, and scholarships, helping families plan for expenses.

Understanding BigFuture Scholarships

BigFuture Scholarships offer students a chance to earn financial aid by completing key college and career planning steps. Administered by the College Board, this initiative motivates students to engage with the college admissions process, with eligible participants entered into drawings for scholarships ranging from hundreds to thousands of dollars.

The BigFuture Scholarship program is designed to help students offset college costs and encourage university attendance. BigFuture helps families pay for college with tools to understand costs, financial aid, and scholarships.

How BigFuture Scholarships Work

The BigFuture Scholarship program rewards students for completing essential steps in the college planning process. Students in their sophomore, junior, and early senior years of high school can complete the following tasks to earn entries into monthly scholarship drawings.

For the class of 2026, scholars opened on December 4, 2023, and will close on February 28, 2026. Students are expected to use their sophomore, junior, and early senior years of high school to complete the necessary tasks.

Qualifying Steps:

Build a Career List: Save three or more careers to your profile to identify colleges with strong programs in those fields.
Create a College List: Save at least three schools to start building your college options.
Explore Scholarships: Use the BigFuture platform to find and select external scholarships from the College Board’s database.
Refine Your College List: Categorize schools as "safety," "match," and "reach," adding at least three more schools to your selection.
Complete the FAFSA: Fill out the Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA) or provide other documentation related to your family's financial situation.
Apply to Colleges: Apply to at least two colleges and update your application status on your profile.

Each completed task earns one entry into the monthly drawing pool. Not completing the following task effectively takes you out of the competition.

Scholarship Amounts and Eligibility

Since 2019, BigFuture has awarded over $23M to over 24,000 students. No essay. No minimum GPA or test score requirements.

BigFuture Scholarships also assesses need when determining student eligibility, ensuring that awards are distributed equitably. Students whose families earn less than $60,000 a year have more chances to earn scholarships. Lower-income students (those who are eligible to receive an SAT waiver, attend school in a high-poverty area, and/or have a family income of $60,000 or less) will have the chance to enter separate and additional drawings.

Overall, 90 winners per month will receive $500 scholarships, with an additional 90 winners selected from the lower-income pool. Students are eligible to receive more than one $500 Scholarship. One winner every one to two months will receive the $40,000 prize, with an additional winner selected from entrants in the lower-income bracket.

Students selected for a scholarship must complete a verification process, which may include submitting additional identification documents, proof of submitted college applications, and proof of income.

It is crucial to note that selection for BigFuture Scholarships is not merit-based; recipients are chosen at random from among qualified applicants. You do not need to take the SAT or another College Board assessment to qualify for the competition.

BigFuture vs. National Merit Scholarship Program

It is important to differentiate BigFuture Scholarships from the National Merit Scholarship Program, which is also administered by the College Board.

Through a rigorous selection process managed by the National Merit Scholarship Corporation, this competitive program awards scholarships based on outstanding academic performance, first identified through top scores on the Preliminary SAT/National Merit Scholarship Qualifying Test (PSAT/NMSQT) (which is administered by the College Board). Each year, among more than 50,000 high scorers nationwide, only a select few thousand exceptional students advance to receive Merit Scholar designations and significant scholarship awards, often $2,500 for the top recipients. Notably, all evaluations and final scholarship selection are overseen by the National Merit Scholarship organization, not the College Board itself.

Eligible students are automatically entered in the National Merit Scholarship Program competition by taking the PSAT, rather than filling out an application.

Read also: "Scholarships": A Deep Dive

BigFuture Scholarship winners, in contrast, are picked directly through the College Board and have a very different application process. Students seeking to enter for a chance to win must submit specific materials outlined above, such as a completed college list and a FAFSA form.

Is BigFuture a Legitimate Platform?

Big Future by College Board is indeed a legitimate platform. BigFuture is recognized for its transparent process, which allows students and families to be selected for generous awards without an application fee. Not only can you search for scholarships on their site, but it also provides information about different colleges and career paths, and offers college planning resources.

BigFuture gives you so many resources, from building your college list, to exploring careers, to submitting the best college applications possible. It should be a staple for any student.

Verifying Scholarship Legitimacy

Still, it’s important to ensure that all communications you receive about the program come directly from official sources. Unfortunately, scholarship phishing scams that attempt to trick students or parents into providing sensitive personal and financial information are common. Remember, if you ever receive a message requesting payment to enter the random drawing for BigFuture Scholarships, it is not legitimate and should be treated as a scam.

While it's a helpful tool in college planning, it's always a good practice to verify information from multiple sources, meet all deadlines for applications, and make sure the unique specifications of each scholarship align with your profile. Remember, applying for scholarships is often a numbers game - the more you apply, the higher your chances. Prioritize those with criteria well-suited to your personal, academic, and financial circumstance.

Leveraging BigFuture for Scholarship Searches

As previously mentioned, the College Board’s BigFuture site offers a scholarship search tool for interested students, with tens of thousands of opportunities listed at different award amounts based on:

Where students live
Where students plan on studying
GPA and other measures of academic accomplishment
Intended area of study
Need-based factors
Essays or other supplemental application materials

They pool data about opportunities funded by a wide array of organizations, from private companies to nonprofit institutions. Each scholarship or aid program listed on Big Future has its own eligibility criteria and process for application. Keep in mind that you'll be evaluated by the organization sponsoring the specific opportunity you're interested in, not by Big Future or the College Board.

These scholarships are offered by several institutions and organizations dedicated to advancing different missions and supporting students. Applying to several scholarships increases your chances of receiving additional financial awards, which can help make college more affordable.

Tips for Scholarship Applications

However, there are some important things to consider before applying for third-party aid:

Whether the award is distributed one-time or multi-year
If it is a one-time award, whether you can reapply for future scholarships
Whether you need to submit many materials or can easily apply with a few clicks
College GPA requirements or other qualifications that need to be met after the award is distributed
The possibility that your college may subtract merit or other aid awarded based on additional scholarship amounts

Applying to several scholarships can be taxing, so keep yourself organized with a spreadsheet that details scholarship due dates, amounts, and required documents. On the bright side, creating a list of scholarships through the BigFuture profile, along with other steps, automatically puts you in the running for the College Board’s generous cash prizes.

Additional Strategies to Reduce College Costs

The BigFuture scholarship was created to help address the challenge of paying for college, as covering educational expenses is a significant financial commitment for most families. In addition to exploring scholarships and resources through the College Board, students and families can take several proactive steps before matriculation to minimize student debt and reduce immediate college costs. Understanding how to pay for college starts with thoughtful planning and wise choices:

Develop a comprehensive plan and budget for paying for college, setting clear limits on tuition, living expenses, and other costs. Establishing these expectations early will make it easier to evaluate your college options and manage your finances effectively.
Begin your college applications and financial aid forms as early as possible. This allows more time to apply for institutional aid and third-party scholarships, an essential part of paying for college without excessive loans.
Earn money through summer jobs before and during college. This can help students save for tuition, housing, or daily expenses, directly reducing the amount needed to cover college costs.
Take advantage of part-time jobs and federal work-study programs during college, a common way to earn money while gaining valuable work experience or exploring potential career paths through paid internships.
While in high school, students should enroll in AP classes that can lead to college credit or advanced placement, enabling students to graduate sooner and reduce total tuition costs.
Apply to a balanced list of safety, match, and reach schools, including public in-state universities. Many states offer top-tier public research institutions with outstanding facilities and alumni networks that rival those of private colleges, but at lower tuition.
Evaluate the return on investment for your intended major. For example, aspiring doctors enjoy high earning potential but face many years of schooling; choosing a cost-effective undergraduate program can make paying for medical school more manageable.
Consider federal student loans, both subsidized and unsubsidized, which typically offer lower interest rates and more borrower protections than private loans. Use private loans only when necessary, and be aware that Parent PLUS loans from the federal government carry high interest rates, approaching 9%.
If affordability is a primary concern, avoid applying Early Decision (ED), as colleges may offer less generous financial aid packages to ED applicants who are already committed to attending that institution.

Ultimately, learning how to pay for college means starting financial planning well before you receive your aid offers from accepted schools. By taking these steps in advance, you can make informed decisions about where to attend and how to manage costs, keeping college affordability at the center of your strategy.

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