Online platforms that aid in getting scholarships, educational loans
What's the story
Pursuing higher studies can be financially taxing most of the time, especially when studying abroad. In today's digital world, however, many online platforms have made the lives of a number of students easier as they can find educational loans and scholarships without much fuss. Here are a few online platforms which can help students with educational loans and scholarships for pursuing higher education.
Scholarship aggregator
Buddy4Study
Buddy4Study is an online platform that aggregates global scholarship information with the aim to make quality education available to all. Launched by IIT, IIM, and BITS Pilani alumni in 2011, the platform has so far helped over one million students get the right scholarships. It has a scholarship search engine that allows seekers and providers to access curated scholarship information from across the world.
Loans & scholarships
GyanDhan
GyanDhan is an online education financing marketplace that also offers a scholarship of Rs. 1 lakh. It was launched with the aim of increasing accessibility to higher education. The scholarship is granted based on merit and strength of profile. It's for candidates pursuing a two-year postgraduate course overseas—in the USA, UK, Australia, among others. Students must have an undergraduate degree from an Indian university.
Corporate-funded scholarships
Vidyasaarathi
Vidyasaarathi is an online platform run by Protean eGov Technologies Limited. It is a technology-enabled initiative aimed at providing financial assistance to deserving students via corporate-funded scholarships. Students can apply to educational finance schemes for skill development and higher education. Over 10 lakh students have registered on this platform so far, and candidates receive scholarships based on merit from fund providers, industries, and corporates.
Government scholarships
National Scholarship Portal
The National Scholarship Portal is an educational assistance initiative under the Centre's National e-Governance Plan (NeGP). It is a Mission Mode Project that aims to provide a digital one-stop platform for different services related to government scholarships—applications, receipts, processing, sanctions, and disbursal. It serves as a common portal for implementing scholarships under the central government and those offered by the states and union territories.