Scholarships

A gap year can be used by students to maximize their scholarship application.

The traditional way to college is going directly to college from high school, but most of the time, young adults are reconsidering. Some high school graduates take a gap year prior to attending college.

Can actually taking time off put young adults ahead at applying for scholarships, let alone giving them more time to search for best sources to fund tuition and living costs?

• -Public high schools indicated that 2.6% of 2023 graduates spent a gap year.
• A gap year can provide young adults with the time to take care of their health and be better equipped to withstand the demands of college academic life.
• -A gap year can be utilized to develop new skills and experience that will make for strong scholarship applications.
• -Some scholarship applications are time-sensitive and are not accessible after a gap year.
• -Placing initiative behind arranging a gap year and searching for scholarships will obtain maximum use of it and increase your opportunity for obtaining financial assistance.

Gap year refers to the amount of time that high school graduates spend before they go to college. The name has also been applied to other breaks, either in college or in your professional life.

Prior to the COVID pandemic, the Gap Year Association approximated 1.8% of college-bound students who had deferred to take a gap year. In the first year of the pandemic, gap year deferrals were 4.9%.

This percentage has decreased from the peak of the pandemic, and 2.6% of 2023 high school graduates were deferred for a gap year. Although deferrals are probably less common than they were in the early months of COVID, gap year application patterns are on the rise.

Gap year students justify taking a gap year by saying they wish to grow up as an individual, trying a foreign holiday, having a break from studying, studying possibilities, volunteering, and career investigation.

How a Gap Year Could Make Your Scholarship Application Better

While gap years provide young adults with time out of school, they can also prepare themselves better for college along the way. You can gain experiences that will make your scholarship applications stronger.

During a gap year, you may:

• Volunteer with a non-profit organization
• Learn a foreign language
• Job shadowing
• Gain an internship experience
• Work on an independent project
• When a Gap Year Might Hurt Your Choices
• While a gap year will prepare students for college and give them time to write an effective scholarship application, there are possible drawbacks. 

As the academic paradigm of high school, a gap year frees young adults with more autonomy. Unless you're strategic with how you use that time, there's a high likelihood you won't do things that make you more likely to win a scholarship.

Gap years have lots of wonderful potential. You can take time off from school stress, concentrate on gaining more experience, and develop your scholarship application. Even so, you should do something with your school break. Without deciding how you will be spending your time and considering your options for scholarships, you may find yourself in a worse situation.

As a big step towards safeguarding linguistic heritage and empowering future generations of professionals, the World Konkani Centre has declared that students who studied Konkani as their third language in Karnataka schools will now be given the highest priority for its crème-de-la-crème engineering and medical scholarship program from this year.

This is not only intended to assist the students in their studies, but to promote the cultural identity value through education. "It's our way of honouring young minds who choose to keep the language alive while striving for academic excellence," president of the Vishwa Konkani Kendra Nandagopal Shenoy said in a statement on Friday.

The programme is a part of the larger vision of the World Konkani Scholarship Fund, which has already benefited dozens of young doctors and engineers from all over India. But this year, it is creating a strong impact — providing linguistic and cultural dedication a seat in the list of merit.

To enlist, the concerned students have to register by using a Google form on the official website: www.vishwakonkani.org. 

The applicants need to send the following documents:

• Their PUC II marks card,
• Headmaster's certificate from school confirming Konkani was studied as third language,
• College admission evidence,
• Fee structure in details,
• CET/NEET scorecards, and
• Scholarship registration confirmation.

The above documents have to be mailed to the Secretary, World Konkoni Scholarship Fund, World Konkani Centre, Shaktinagar, Mangaluru.

For underrepresented Konkani speakers, this award gives not only delayed economic assistance but also inspires the next generation to remain connected to their linguistic heritage as they pursue new, high-priority careers.

As yet more young scholars introduce Konkani to ORs and engineering classrooms, this program quietly makes certain that an old language will continue to thrive — not merely in books alone, but in the hearts and futures of its people.

Shahu Maharaj Research, Training and Human Development Institute (Sarathi), a state government organization meant to facilitate higher education for Maratha students abroad, has been criticized for adding what student activists call "excessive and unfair" documentation to its 2025 foreign scholarship program.

As per student activist Kuldeep Ambekar, president of Student Helping Hands, Sarathi now requires students to provide land records as part of their scholarship application—a step he calls harassment.

Sarathi has gone beyond limits… Now the only thing remaining is to get students to submit their land documents," Ambekar said. He claimed that in the name of scrutiny and regulation, the institute is enforcing unreasonable procedural hurdles that are deterring and taking a toll on applicants.

According to documents retrieved by The Free Press Journal, students are also asked to file three independent legal statements—an undertaking, a bond, and an affidavit—each on a Rs500 non-judicial stamp paper attested by a public notary. These are necessary even at the application level, taking initial costs into thousands. Also, the schedule of compulsory submissions extends to 24 in number, such as caste validity, domicile, income certificates, and proof of GRE/TOEFL or IELTS scores, many of which have to be certified or notarised.

Ambekar asserted that the scholarship is now a bureaucratic nightmare instead of an assisting mechanism. "This is nothing less than procrastination. Sarathi is adding obstacles day by day through a new 'rulebook' that has made it complicated and time-consuming," he asserted.

While the 2025 application cycle raises fresh concerns, students selected under last year’s cycle are still waiting for financial support. Ambekar revealed that 75 students chosen for the scholarship in 2024 have not received a single rupee. “Some of them are managing expenses through education loans, while others are working part-time jobs abroad just to afford meals. Yet, Sarathi’s only response is—‘there is no budget’,” he said.

In one of such instances, a student who was admitted to the University of Leeds for a postgraduate MSc in Human Resources and Organisations applied with a detailed breakdown of costs, indicating a total of £29,250 (approximately Rs31.46 lakh) for fees, living expenses, travel, and insurance. Though completing all documentation, there has been no transparency regarding funding.

Ambekar reaffirmed that scholarship is a right, not a privilege. "The scheme is well-advertised, but on the ground, it is students being abandoned and asked to fend for themselves. This policy needs to end," he asserted and called for Sarathi to make it easy and disburse funds without any delay.

Your Trust for the Rhodes Scholarship has indicated its plans to expand the number of Indian students receiving scholarships to study at the University of Oxford to 2028.

The initiative is one of the Trust's strategy of increasing scholars per head of population and among the priorities is India due to its vast population and increasing need for talent. Six Indian students are currently studying under the scholarship every year and this will be increased as part of the expansion scheme of the Trust.

Rhodes Scholarship is one of the oldest and highest fully funded international scholarship programs which offers academically talented students a chance to pursue 2-3 years postgraduate education at the University of Oxford. It pays for tuition fees, living expenses, and traveling costs and offers an education experience that can change their life. The age of the candidate should be between 18 and 23 years, but exceptions are given to some till the age of 27 years.

The news comes ahead of the 125th Rhodes Scholarship anniversary in 2028, and the Trust is attempting to collect more money to fund expansion. Besides India, the scholarship will also be increased in other places such as China, which currently has four scholarships, and Africa, which receives 21 scholarships every year.

At the same time, the 2026 cohort already enjoys an open window period of application with the cut-off date set on July 23, 2025. Opening wider gates for Indian students is a critical move towards achieving a more even global presence in one of the world's top education institutions. The move also indicates India's growing stature in the global education landscape.

By all accounts, India claims to be building a knowledge economy. We are told that we are the Vishwaguru, the rising star of the Global South, the next superpower. And yet, over 1,400 PhD students—many of them first-generation learners from minority communities—have not been paid their rightful stipends under the Maulana Azad National Fellowship (MANF) since January 2025. That’s half a year of research disrupted, lives upended, and dreams stalled.

Let's be crystal clear: this is not an administrative lag. It's a systemic betrayal.

The fellowship, introduced in 2009 to encourage inclusive higher education, assists scholars who belong to economically weaker sections of Muslim, Christian, Sikh, Buddhist, Jain, and Parsi communities. These are NET-qualified candidates with a monthly income of ₹37,000–₹42,000—modest but vital sums that enable them to eke out a living while expanding knowledge frontiers.

But since the Union government chose to transfer nodal duties from the UGC to the National Minorities Development and Finance Corporation (NMDFC), there has been chaos. Researchers are trapped in the macabre dance of Aadhaar checks, document re-submissions, and ministry visits—with no direction, no transparency, and definitely no accountability.

Students such as Nazia Israr of Kashmir University are facing eviction notices, shattered research schedules, and shaky futures. She has yet to see a rupee since January. "My rent is outstanding. My research is in arrears. I just got married—how long can my husband shoulder this burden?" she says. But maybe the most heartbreaking sentence from her interview? "This fellowship wasn't money—it was hope."

Is that what the government is axing these days? Hope?

In December 2022, the government assured that current MANF fellows would not be impacted despite stopping fresh admissions. A year down the line, it reduced the budget by 4.9%—from ₹45.08 crore to ₹42.84 crore—and hasn't released the outstanding dues yet. Where is accountability?

Worse still, scholars under UGC fellowships got revised House Rent Allowance (HRA) from January 2024. But MANF fellows—doing the same work, occupying the same departments—are still being denied parity. Isn't this discrimination disguised as monitoring?

The NMDFC says it has the money but lacks sanction to disburse them. Who is stalling that sanction? And above all, why?

Opposition leaders—Rahul Gandhi, Mohammad Jawed, T Sumathy, Zia Ur Rehman Barq—have pressed the matter in Parliament. But no reason, no timeline, no compassion has been offered by the government. Do we have to assume that a country capable of sending lunar missions can't release scholarships to 1,400 PhD students?

In a nation where academic freedom is already under attack, this silence is sabotage.

Let us not feign that this is a one-off glitch. It is a trend—a gradual elimination of mechanisms intended to balance the playing field for minorities. Today it is the MANF. Tomorrow, it might be the Post-Matric Scholarship, the Begum Hazrat Mahal Scheme, or some other scheme. 

If India truly believes in inclusive education, the government needs to respond: Why are minority scholars always forced to beg for what's already theirs?

The Education Department of Arunachal Pradesh has successfully disbursed stipends to 8,501 students enrolled in higher education under the state-funded Arunachal Pradesh Stipend Scheme.

Each eligible student will receive a financial grant of ₹16,400, which is being transferred directly into their bank accounts through the Direct Benefit Transfer (DBT) system. This ensures timely, transparent, and hassle-free disbursement of funds to students across the state.

The scheme is part of the state government’s ongoing efforts to support students financially, particularly those from economically disadvantaged backgrounds, enabling them to pursue higher education without added financial stress.

Officials from the Education Department confirmed that the entire disbursement process has been streamlined digitally to minimise delays and eliminate middlemen. The initiative is expected to boost student retention and academic performance in colleges and universities across Arunachal Pradesh.

By leveraging DBT and a student-centric approach, the state is reaffirming its commitment to educational equity and empowerment.