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They say the best things in life are free...and though we don’t know who exactly "they" are, we couldn’t agree more: As a Scholarships.com member, you have access to a customized scholarship search, detailed financial aid information, an organized college search, standardized test study guides and more all at no cost to you. Think your friends might like these gratis goodies as well? Spread the word about Scholarships.com through our Tell A Friend Scholarship and you'll have a chance to win money for college – $1,000 for you and $500 for one of your buddies!

To enter, simply copy your personalized TAF referral link (you can get it here) and blog it, tweet it, email it, IM it or Facebook it. For every one of your friends who creates a profile on our site by clicking your link, you will be entered to win a $1,000 award; there’s no limit as to how many people you can send your link to and if you win, one of your friends who created a Scholarships.com profile using your link will be chosen at random to win $500. That’s WAY better than a friendship bracelet!

Remember, the more friends you refer, the more entries you’ll get until the June 30th deadline. For more information, visit our Tell A Friend Scholarship page and for additional scholarship opportunities, conduct a free scholarship search today. Good luck!

Winning money for college is great but doing so without having to meet astronomical word counts and double-digit page requirements is even better. Lucky for you, the folks at College Prowler couldn’t agree more and have launched the $2,000 No Essay Scholarship.

The scholarship is open to all students and those planning on enrolling within 12 months. The monthly winner will be determined by random drawing and then contacted directly and announced on their Facebook page. One entry per person, but you can come back each month to try again. To apply, please visit College Prowler or complete a free scholarship search to find additional opportunities.

The academic year is winding down but so is the amount of time left to apply for Scholarships.com’s Short & Tweet Scholarship: Applicants now have just one week to enter to win a $1,000 scholarship or Kindle for college!

Whether this is the first you’re hearing about this award or you’ve applied multiple times since the contest relaunched on April 2nd, here’s a quick refresher on what you need to do to create a scholarship-worthy entry:

• Follow @Scholarshipscom on Twitter.
• Mention @Scholarshipscom in a tweet answering the question "What was the most important thing you learned this year *AND* why?" Once you do this, you are entered to win a $1,000 scholarship or one of two Kindles.
• You may enter as many times as you want until May 14th but please limit your tweets to three per day (and no tweeting in class!). Each tweet will be a stand-alone entry and tweets that are submitted by non-followers, exceed 140 characters, do not include @Scholarshipscom, do not answer the entire question or are submitted after the May 14th deadline will not be considered. On May 15th, the Scholarships.com Team will begin reviewing Short & Tweet entries to determine which tweets are most deserving of the awards.

Think you have what it takes to take the Short & Tweet prize this time around? Get thee to Twitter and wield those 140 characters wisely! For more information about this scholarship and others, conduct a free scholarship search today. Good luck, everyone!

Note: The Short & Tweet Scholarship is offered by Scholarships.com and is in no way sponsored, endorsed or administered by, or associated with Twitter.

Bubble gum in your hair. “Kick me” signs. He said, she said. These are all sticky situations we try to avoid in life – and for good reason! – but here’s one that could pay off big for your college education: The Duck Brand Stuck at Prom Scholarship Contest.

The Henkal Corporation's Duck Brand Stuck at Prom Scholarship Contest is open to legal residents of the United States and Canada, including the District of Columbia but excluding Puerto Rico and the Province of Quebec. This scholarship contest rewards individuals for creating prom attire made completely out of – you guessed it – Duck brand duct tape. To be eligible for the $5,000, $3,000, $2,000 and $500 scholarship awards, each couple must submit:

• One color photograph (professional or amateur) of the couple together in prom attire
• Each individual's full name, address, telephone number, email address (if applicable) and age/grade level, and the name of the closest major city to the individual's hometown
• A release form signed by each individual and, if any entrant is a minor (under 18 years of age), that individual's parent or guardian
• The name, address, and telephone number of the high school or home school association which is hosting the prom and the date the prom was held

The deadline to submit your adhesive attire is June 13th so there’s still plenty of time to get creative. For a registration form and official contest rules, interested students should visit the Duck brand website or conduct a free Scholarships.com scholarship search today!

Even if you don’t know Julius, Clancy or Worry Bear by name, you’ve likely seen these characters in one of Paul Frank’s whimsical designs at one point or another. If you think you can create something just as funky, enter the second annual Paul Frank Art Attack Scholarship for a chance to earn $2,500 to put toward your amazing artistic future!

Art Attack participation requires an upload of one piece of original art including some element of the Paul Frank characters/brand, an explanation of how and why the artist incorporated the Paul Frank brand, a description of what kind of art education program the applicant will be supported by the prize money and brief background info about the applicant. The Paul Frank online community will vote on submissions to narrow to the top 10 in each age group (14 – 17 and 18+) on PaulFrank.com and a panel of expert judges will select the first and second place winners in each category. One first prize of $2,500, two second prizes of $1,000, and three third prizes of $500 to be allocated to art supplies or classes will be awarded; in addition to the monetary scholarship, the winning adult artist will also receive a full page ad in Juxtapoz magazine and funding for travel to visit the Paul Frank studios and attend the Academy of Awesome launch party with a feature on PaulFrank.com.

The Art Attack deadline is May 15th so applicants have just about one month left to submit their creations. For more information about this and other scholarship opportunities, conduct a free scholarship search today!

In 200 years, one of your relatives is going to be digging in what is now your backyard. They are going to find something that you buried in 2012 and it is going to put any financial woes they have to rest. The Big Dig Scholarship asks you to select that item! Keep in mind that the item you choose must be currently available for purchase today and is under $500. You must then write an essay that is between 500 – 1000 words explaining why you chose the item you did. Be sure to also include:

• Where you could purchase the item today?
• How much does this item cost?
• What made you choose the item?
• Why do you believe that the item will have immense value in 200 years from now?

For more information on this scholarship and other scholarship opportunities, conduct a free scholarship search today!

Another academic year is winding down but before you turn your attention to summer jobs, internships and the occasional beach day, we have a question for you: What was the most important thing you learned this year and why? Not only could answering this question help provide some insight into your priorities for next year but it could also earn you $1,000 or a Kindle for college. That’s right: Scholarships.com's Short & Tweet Scholarship is BACK!

Was it a lecture or group project that stuck with you the most? A personal experience that changed your way of thinking? If it's important to you, we want to know! The challenge is that you have to tell us in 140 characters or fewer. Here's how to enter:

Step 1: Starting April 2nd, follow @Scholarshipscom on Twitter.

Step 2: Mention us (@Scholarshipscom) in a tweet answering the question "What was the most important thing you learned this year *AND* why?" Once you do this, you are entered to win a $1,000 scholarship or one of two Kindles.

Step 3: You may enter as many times as you want from April 2nd through May 14th but please limit your tweets to three per day. Each tweet will be a stand-alone entry and tweets that are submitted by non-followers, exceed 140 characters, do not include @Scholarshipscom, do not answer the entire question or are submitted after the May 14th deadline will not be considered. From there, the Scholarships.com Team will determine which comments are most deserving of the awards.

• Starts: April 2nd
• Ends: May 14th
• Number Available: 3
• Amount: $1,000 for one first-place winner; one Kindle each for second- and third-place winners

This scholarship competition is offered by Scholarships.com and is in no way sponsored, endorsed or administered by, or associated with Twitter.

For official rules, please click here.

by Darci Miller, Scholarships.com Virtual Intern

They say that April showers bring May flowers but March brings March Madness. This is the time when college basketball fans feverishly compile brackets and glue themselves to their TVs. I think it’s safe to say that we’ve all lost someone to March Madness, as the afflicted individual shuts themselves away from society for several weeks, but there’s always the chance that your bracketology wasn’t quite up to scratch this season. If your top seeds were eliminated early on, you may find yourself with a March entirely free from basketball obligations.

So what to do with yourself? Now that it’s officially springtime, you could always venture outdoors. Temperatures are rising and flowers are beginning to bloom, so there’s no better time to sit in a local park and take a break.

On the flip side, isn’t it just about time for midterms? I know it gets harder to study the warmer it gets (as I sit here watching interviews with “The Hunger Games” cast instead of writing a paper) but summer is on the horizon and I know you have some gas left in your tank, right? Hey, if I can write 2,000 words about Brutalist British architecture, you can handle your class assignments, too!

The coming of summer also means that the search for the perfect internship is in full swing. Though it’s fairly late in the season to be getting into the internship game, there are still countless positions looking to be filled. Now’s a great time to brush off your resume, hit up the campus career center and start applying.

Bank account looking a little dry? There’s never a wrong time to be applying for scholarships for next semester! (Though, if you’re reading this on the Scholarships.com blog, I’m sure you already know that!) Trust me: As someone who received a $4,500 stipend for a little extra study abroad wiggle room, I can tell you that it’s worth the effort.

See, just because your basketball team is a lost cause doesn’t mean March has to be!

Darci Miller is a New Yorker studying journalism and sport administration at the University of Miami. When she’s not writing for the school newspaper, you can find her at the gym, either working or working out. She loves all ‘80s pop culture (the cheesier, the better!) and glues herself to her TV when the Olympics are on. She dreams big and believes the sky’s the limit. This semester, Darci is studying abroad in London and will share her international experiences here.

Brad's Deals is pleased to announce the Shop Smart Scholarship Competition to recognize, encourage and reward students whose college experience is enabled by remarkable frugality, ingenuity, effort and thrift. Five finalists will receive $2,000 scholarships for the upcoming academic year.

To be eligible for this award, students must do the following:

• Write a 500-word essay explaining how your college experience is or will be enabled by remarkable frugality, ingenuity, effort or thrift; applicants are encouraged to discuss topics such as student loans, other scholarships and grants, personal savings, working full- or part-time while in school, or any other creative or remarkable approach to paying for college or saving money as a student.
• Break down your all-in educational costs (tuition, room, board, other) and how they are or will be paid (given the "shop smart" theme, there is a bias against both high annual tuition costs and student loans).

Essays will be judged on the creativity of the money saving strategies described, along with the overall remarkableness of the author’s experience paying for school in the spirit of thrift. For more on this scholarship and other scholarship opportunities, conduct a free scholarship search today!

Text messaging can come in handy when you are taking a short study break in a quiet library but when it happens behind the wheel of a moving vehicle, its convenience is replaced by danger. You’ve probably see people texting at traffic signals, on side streets and on the highway at 65 miles per hour but the action is dangerous and on its way to becoming illegal. Want to help bring about change regarding texting and driving? Slow down and take a look at our latest Scholarship of the Week, Project Yellow Light.

As a Project Yellow Light applicant, you have one clear mission in your video application: encourage other teens to develop and embrace safe driving habits – specifically, don’t text and drive. High school seniors who will complete graduation requirements by or before July 31st of this year must submit their 60-second videos via the Project Yellow Light website by March 31st. The first-place winner will receive a scholarship in the amount of $2,000, the second-place winner will receive $500 and the third-place winner will receive $200; in addition to a scholarship, the winning video will be turned into an Ad Council PSA and will be distributed nationally to 1,600 TV stations.

Interested in learning more about this scholarship opportunity? Visit Project Yellow Light’s official website and conduct a free scholarship search today!