Interested in attending college? If so, you’ll want to apply for scholarships as early as possible. Scholarships can make a significant impact in helping cover college costs. Various community organizations, foundations, non-profits, and corporations across the country offer scholarships to help students pay for college. And the easiest way to search for these scholarships is often through an online platform.

There’s many online scholarship searches out there, and each one offers something different. MEFA Pathway, a free online portal for Massachusetts students, allows students to search for and save a list of both local and national scholarships. We interviewed MEFA Pathway Program Manger Jennifer Bento-Pinyoun about the MEFA Pathway Scholarship Search feature.

LP: What is MEFA Pathway?

JB: MEFA Pathway is a comprehensive college and career planning platform offered to students in grades 6-12 free of cost by MEFA.

LP:  What sets MEFA Pathway’s Scholarship Search apart from other online scholarship platforms?

JB: MEFA Pathway’s Scholarship Search feature allows students to select criteria specific to them to build out a list of scholarships they are eligible for and may want to apply to. Criteria include state of residence, area of study, ethnicity, type of school, and religion. Once a student finds a scholarship he or she wants to apply to, the student can add the scholarship to a personalized list. Students can use their personalized scholarship lists to keep up with their scholarship deadlines and to track the status and amount of each award. They can remove or add scholarships to their list at any time.



LP:  What kind of scholarships can students search for?

JB: Students can search for both national and local scholarships in MEFA Pathway. There are over 5,000 national scholarships available in the database. Each scholarship has a details page with a description, eligibility criteria, and steps on how to apply. Schools that use MEFA Pathway can add local scholarships into the scholarship database.



LP:  How can students get started searching for scholarships in MEFA Pathway?

JB: Students can either log in to their existing MEFA Pathway account or easily register for an account at mefapathway.org. From there students can select Scholarship Search under the Pay for College tab to start searching. Students can select My Scholarship List under the Pay for College tab to view the scholarships they have saved to their account.