If you’ve always dreamed of being in the front row during fashion week, being featured in a 6-page spread in Vogue, or having your name mentioned on the red carpet at the Academy Awards, you have probably thought about pursuing a degree in Fashion Design or Merchandising. These degrees have truly come to the forefront of American pop culture in recent years, and students are enrolling in schools like the Fashion Institute of Technology and Parsons the New School for Design in droves. Whether this is in the hopes of being the next winner of Project Runway, or simply to live out his or her own crazy fashion sense, and fashion degree is becoming increasingly sought after.
What isn’t sought after, however, is the hefty price tag of a two-year or four-year fashion or design degree. Luckily, as the popularity of a certain major increases, so do the scholarship opportunities. That means that you don’t have to win the grand prize on a reality show to pay off your students loans. You just have to know where to look for fashions school scholarships.
Most often, great scholarships for fashion and design are concentrated at great fashion and design schools. Kent State University has a thriving fashion and design department, and hosts a number of scholarships for undergraduate students. These awards are worth up to $3,000 and are offered primarily to Design and Merchandising students. Like many school specific awards, most don’t require a specific application, but may want to see examples of your work, and have you write and essay.
Similarly, the Fashion Institute of Technology (which as part of the City University of New York is slightly more affordable that private colleges) offers a few school-specific scholarships, but these are primarily only open to New York State residents.
If it isn’t fashion, but interior or textile design that you are interested in, there is still free college money to be had. Scholarships.com offers a $1,000 design scholarship to students who register for their free scholarship search service. If you have a knack for creating more efficient space in your interior designs, you can enter the Simple Solutions Design competition, which has a grand prize of $5,000.
As a fashion or design student, you are probably used to using your creativity. Let that follow into your scholarship search as well. In addition to looking for specific fashion and design scholarships, also look into art scholarships that might have a design component, or study abroad programs that might enhance your fashion and design education. You never know where some of those scholarship dollars might be hiding.