<p>If a student is trying to fund a substantial part of their college education with scholarships, my recommendation is usually to pursue schools with merit scholarships rather than outside scholarships. This doesn’t mean you can’t do both to some extent, but outside scholarships (particularly the local ones) tend to be for relatively small amounts and are only usually only for the first year of college. In comparison, institutional scholarships are often for higher amounts and for all four years provided the student maintains a specified gpa. But unless they are automatic scholarships for SAT scores or the like, you need to do a lot of homework selecting the schools where you will be more likely to get a scholarship. It’s important to look at the number of each scholarship that a college gives and what the usual stats are for students who receive them. Sometimes these are listed clearly on the website, other times they are pretty vague.</p>