For most students a full ride scholarship would be a dream come true. Simply, a “full ride” represents one of the easiest ways to graduate from college debt free and without paying for college out of pocket. While winning a full ride scholarship is difficult, we want to put you in the best position to be in the running.

What is a full ride scholarship?

A full ride scholarship refers to a comprehensive scholarship that covers tuition, room, board, expenses for books and other fees, and oftentimes money for expenses such as a laptop. Some full ride scholarships even include bonus money that will help fund a research or study abroad experience over the summer.

Some colleges and universities may also award full ride scholarship recipients other benefits including the opportunity to be part of an honors program or preferential residence hall selection.

So how do you win full ride scholarships?

There are actually a few different ways you can win a full ride scholarship to a college:

1. Private full ride scholarships
2. Apply to a college that awards a full ride
3. Hack a full ride scholarship

Private full ride scholarship

While many private scholarships will award between $1,000 and $10,000 to students, some will cover full tuition, room, and board to students. The great thing about these private scholarships is that they are not generally tied to a specific college or university so you have more flexibility! Both the Cameron Impact Scholarship and the Questbridge Scholarship are worth checking out if you are a high school student. Like college-specific full ride awards, these private scholarships are highly competitive.

Apply to a college that awards a full ride

Last, but not least, the simplest way to win a full ride scholarship is to apply to colleges that offer full ride scholarships. These colleges will offer comprehensive scholarships that include full tuition room, board, and potentially more. Remember that full ride scholarships are extremely competitive at any college and only a small percentage of students will be selected.

Which colleges offer full ride scholarships?

Below you will find some of the top colleges and universities that offer full ride scholarships for students. We are constantly updating this list, so check back for more colleges and universities. In order to be as complete as possible, we have also included some colleges that offer full tuition scholarships (as these scholarships may be combined with need-based financial aid to cover the complete cost of attendance).

Auburn University (Auburn, AL)

• Offers the National Scholars Presidential Scholarship to National Merit Finalists and National Achievement Finalists, which award full-tuition scholarships to both in-state and out-f-state students.

Boston College (Chestnut Hill, MA)

• The Presidential Scholars Program is a full-tuition merit scholarship to 15 students

Duke University (Durham, NC)

• Duke University offers nine merit programs which include full-tuition scholarships

Southern Methodist University (Dallas, TX)

• SMU offers merit scholarships up to full tuition & room/board!

University of Miami (Miami, Florida)

• University of Miami offers full-tuition merit scholarships including the Isaac Bashevis Singer Scholarship and the Ronald A. Hammond Scholarship

University of North Carolina- Chapel Hill

• UNC-CH offers several full-tuition merit scholarships for both in-state and out-of-state students.

University of Southern California (Los Angeles, CA)

• USC offers a number of full-tuition scholarships to incoming freshman.

University of Virginia (Charlottesville, VA)

• UVa’s Jefferson Scholars program offers in-state scholars $26,000 each year, and out-of-state or international students over $53,000 per year.

Tulane University (New Orleans, LA)

• Tulane offers over 130 full tuition scholarships awarded that require a separate scholarship application (that is due on December 5th)

Vanderbilt University (Nashville, TN)

• Vanderbilt offers full-tuition awards plus summer stipends for study abroad, research or service projects to 250 students.

Wake Forest University (Winston-Salem, NC)

• WFU offers several full ride scholarship opportunities to prospective students including the Reynolds Scholarship.

Hack a full ride scholarship

The goal of a full ride scholarship is to pay for your entire cost of attendance at a college. To accomplish this, you do not need all of your scholarship money to come from one place. You can cobble together a college-specific merit scholarship, some need-based financial aid, as well as an outside private scholarship to cover the cost of attendance. Smart students may wind up receiving a full (or nearly full) scholarship to college without initially realizing it. This is why we always encourage students to develop a broad scholarship strategy including need-based financial aid, private scholarships, and college-specific scholarships.