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.
Most families start looking at how to pay for college far too late. Here is where to begin. Hundreds of scholarships, search sites, deadlines and a recommended reading list — compiled and updated by hand since 2006. What the FAFSA actually does, how aid packages are built, which deadlines matter, and the difference between money you keep and money you repay. Cost, program, and fit — how to compare schools honestly before you fall in love with one you cannot afford.Three things worth doing before you sign anything
Get The Scholarship File
Understand financial aid
Choose a college wisely
Twenty 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
One afternoon at a college fair, a young woman stopped by my table with her younger sister. As I explained how students can graduate debt-free using The Scholarship File, the older sister quietly interrupted me.
“I wish I’d had that scholarship file before I went to college,” she said. “When I graduated two years ago, I had $72,000 in student loan debt.”
She was living back at home because she couldn’t find a job in her field. Her monthly student loan payment was nearly $700, and her parents were helping her make the payments. Even then, she still had eight more years before the loans would finally be paid off.
I graduated from college with about $3,000 in student loans. As I listened to her story, I couldn’t imagine carrying a debt burden that was more than twenty times greater. Her experience was a sobering reminder of why planning for scholarships before college isn’t just helpful—it can change the course of a student’s future.
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 making it available to students and parents for over twenty years without asking where they are applying, and I am not about to start now.
BJU offers a Free Tuition Guarantee that can cover up to 100% of tuition and program fees for qualifying residents with a family AGI of $100,000 or less, after other aid is applied. Eligibility rules, deadlines and non-tuition costs apply — confirm current details directly with BJU.
One of the biggest myths about scholarships is that students should wait until their senior year of high school to start looking… Most people are badly misinformed about who qualifies for scholarships — and stand a far better chance than they think. Small things that decide big awards — from the email address you use to the greeting you open with.
Answers to what students keep asking me
The Scholarship Timeline: What to Do Freshman Through Senior Year of High School
Scholarship Myths
20 Tips for Filling Out Scholarship Applications
I 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.
Sign up and The Scholarship File is immediately yours. No cost, no catch, and it works no matter which college you pick.
Send me the file
Takes about twenty seconds.