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Every January, we all make resolutions for the year ahead – resolutions that are, unfortunately, usually forgotten by February. Want to make a vow you’ll actually keep and earn money for college at the same time this year? Then enter our newest Short & Tweet Scholarship!

What’s on your educational to-do list in 2014? Whether it’s getting into your dream school, decoding the FAFSA or simply setting two alarms so you don’t miss your morning classes, we want to know! Follow us on Twitter and mention us (@Scholarshipscom) in a tweet detailing your school-related resolution and how you plan to keep it. Here’s how to enter:

Step 1: Follow @Scholarshipscom on Twitter.

Step 2: Mention us (@Scholarshipscom) in a tweet answering the question “What’s your school-related resolution for 2014 *AND* how will you stick to it?” Once you do this, you are entered to win a $1,000 scholarship or one of two Kindle Fires.

Step 3: You may enter as many times as you want from December 16th through January 31st but please limit your tweets to one 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 January 31st deadline will not be considered. From there, the Scholarships.com Team will determine which comments are most deserving of the awards.

• Starts: December 16th
• Ends: January 31st
• Number Available: 3
• Amount: $1,000 for one first-place winner; one Kindle Fire 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.

Current high school and college students are probably too young to remember when MTV actually played music videos. It was a glorious time for sure but after hearing this next announcement, I think they will like the network’s new direction just fine.

The NYT’s The Choice blog revealed that instead of launching another mind-numbing reality show, the music channel and the College Board have joined forces for the Get Schooled College Affordability Challenge. The contest – which is being underwritten by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation – is open to current and potential college students interested in creating an innovative digital tool that will help more students obtain funds for school. The prize for the winning individual or team? A cool $10,000, as well as a $100,000 budget to bring their idea to life.

A statement released yesterday stated the contest was created to make it easier for students “to navigate what can be a confusing financial aid maze.” This metaphorical roadmap will definitely be a useful one: Each year, countless students are forced to postpone or abandon their dreams of higher education because they cannot pay for school but the Get Schooled creators hope their program will play a role in raising college completion rates.

The contest will run through December 17th so if you think you have what it takes to win, submit your idea here. Best of luck to all who enter!

Hey, you. The one with the sketchpad full of doodles, memory card filled with images and computer crammed with creations. Yes, YOU. Want to score a college scholarship and help out your school at the same time? Of course you do, because in addition to being wildly talented, you’re also a good person. Here’s what you need to do to make a difference in your life (a $1,000 scholarship) and the lives of others ($5,000 for your school’s music program and 5 HP Pavilion dv6z laptops for your school’s art program) with the Make Art. Save Art. Scholarship from DoSomething.org.

Like the award, the requirements are also in two parts. First, create a PC wallpaper using either your photographic, graphic design or traditional visual art skills and tell DoSomething.org why you think art education is important and why it should continue to be part of the curriculum. Next, upload your original work to Facebook and Twitter and see how many people share your design. Each time someone shares what you created, you’re one step closer to victory so use any and all connections you have to ensure your art is seen. And if a scholarship and funds for the arts aren’t enough, the winning designs will be available for download as PC wallpapers and featured on DoSomething.org.

There are many talented artists out there but only one entrant age 25 or younger will receive this excellent award. For more information, visit www.makeartsaveart.org and for other scholarships like it, conduct a free scholarship search at Scholarships.com.

The Perkins Loan Program has played a vital role in the quest for higher education (mine included) since 1958 but in two years, it could end up just as extinct as dinos and dodos. Can it (and the dreams of countless students) be saved?

The Perkins, or as one supporter affectionately calls it, “the David among the Goliaths of other aid,” is used by 1,800 colleges across the country yet Congress hasn’t provided any new money for the program since 2004. In 2009 alone, colleges awarded 495,000 new Perkins loans at an average of $2,231 per student and its demise would shut out college access to low-income students and eliminate the jobs of campus officials and loan servicers who help distribute the funds. Representative John Spratt clearly understands the importance of the Perkins and is sponsoring an amendment to delay the program’s cancellation – so much so that he held a hearing in Washington yesterday discussing the Perkins’ significance; though it probably won’t pass this year, Spratt is optimistic that with the support of the House Budget Committee and the schools relying on the loans, the amendment has a shot at approval next year.

“By its very nature, the Perkins Loan Program provides schools the flexibility to provide additional aid to needy students. The importance of this flexibility cannot be overstated,” said Sarah Bauder, assistant vice president of enrollment services and student financial aid at the University of Maryland at College Park, in her testimony during the hearing. “Financial aid administrators work where the rubber meets the road and have a unique perspective that allows them to assess students’ and families’ ability to pay for college in ways that aid applications will never be able to assess. When aid administrators see students and families struggling with unique circumstances, they need some flexibility to deliver funds to ensure the success of these students.” One such student, Joseph Hill, also testified. The Georgetown senior stated that though he received $26,000 in scholarships, the Perkins was what made it possible for him to attend the school of his dreams. “Last week, I was talking to my mother, and without hesitation, she said, ‘It still wouldn’t have worked without that Perkins Loan,’ ” Hill revealed.

There’s a lot more to the history of the Perkins and the fight to save it (get the details here) and as a former Perkins recipient, I can’t help but root for this little amendment that could. I'm definitely making a t-shirt.

Finding enough funding for college is hard but that task is made even more difficult when college scholarship committees require applicants to meet countless requirements, fill out stacks of forms and write lengthy essays to even be considered. Well, College Prowler isn’t most scholarship committees and it's doing things a little differently with its $2,000 No Essay Scholarship.

The folks at College Prowler know students are busy and that times are pretty tough for a lot of people right now…but that’s precisely why they’ve created an incredibly easy way to give back to those who need it. All applicants have to do is complete a brief profile, hit submit and voila, they could win $2,000 to put toward tuition, housing, meal plans, books, computers or any education-related expenses. To apply, please visit http://scholarships.com/scc.aspx?pid=703 or complete a scholarship search to find additional opportunities.

Every little bit of financial aid helps when figuring out how to pay for college but this next scholarship – our Scholarship of the Week – will be of more than just a little assistance to the winner. How does $30,000 sound?

The VFW’s Voice of Democracy Scholarship Contest is an annual nationwide audio essay competition designed to give all high school students the opportunity to voice their opinion on their responsibility to our country. This year’s topic is "Does My Generation Have a Role in America’s Future?" and students should record their reading of the draft (at least three minutes but no more than five minutes) to a CD. Entrants should then submit their CD, typed essay and an official Voice of Democracy entry form to their local VFW Post today (November 1st). Former first place state Voice of Democracy winners and high school students over the age of 19 are not eligible. US Citizenship is not required, although students must be permanent residents of the U.S.

For more information on this scholarship, please click here or complete a free scholarship search to find additional opportunities.

The true cost of a college education is seldom the number that’s printed in school brochures and on various college comparison lists. When you figure in federal aid, scholarships, grants, room and board, books and supplies, that price fluctuates. One thing remains constant - higher education doesn’t come cheap - but a new poll finds students are willing to stretch their finances for several key factors.

In April, right up until enrollment deadlines, students were still considering “too expensive” schools and were willing to stretch to pay for their education, poll conductors the College Board and the Art & Science Group report. While it would be more financially sound to select the school with the lower tuition and better financial aid package, “too expensive” colleges remained in play if they had strong academics in students’ fields of interest, were places students felt comfortable, had prestigious academic reputations or had excellent records of graduate school acceptance or good job placement after students graduated. Here’s the breakdown:

• Twenty-six percent of students surveyed said their family would have to stretch a lot, but “I think we’ll make it.”
• Twenty-two percent chose “I’m not sure how my family will afford to send me to college, but I believe we’ll work something out when the time comes.”
• Eleven percent said, “I don’t think my family can afford to send me to college, but we are going to try.” Nearly 40 percent of students surveyed did not have a sense of long-term costs, citing “no idea” what their likely monthly payment on student loans would be after graduation.

If you think back to every award show you’ve ever seen, you’ll recall those who do not win always say it is an honor just to be nominated. The same can be said for college admissions: It’s an amazing achievement to be accepted to a prestigious college but is attending worth it if the cost of attendance is going to drive you and your family into debt?

One would think that the condition of the U.S. economy would have undergraduates declaring business as their majors in droves. One would also, however, be wrong: Federal and college data show interest in the field is mimicking the Metrodome roof and falling.

Inside Higher Ed reports business is no longer the big man on campus in terms of majors and interest appears to be static and even waning at many schools. Since 2008, Pennsylvania State University has recorded a 30-percent decline in undergraduates accepting offers from its Smeal College of Business – a trend that’s far from isolated: Though rates have remained stable and even increased at the University of Oregon and Indiana University, the share of business majors at University of Central Florida is down by nearly 15 percent this semester relative to 2008 and 13 percent fewer students are enrolled in Purdue University’s Krannert School of Management this semester compared to two years ago; last year, the number of applicants dropped 26 percent from the previous year.

John Pryor, director of the survey-conducting Cooperative Institutional Research Program at the University of California Los Angeles, suggested student loan debt and the perceived lack of career stability in business may be fueling this shift. "Even though students have higher debt, some are seeing that business is not as likely to help them pay that debt back," he wrote. "We also saw business employees losing jobs and having lower incomes, so perhaps students see business as not providing as sure a track towards economic freedom as in the past." The survey also suggested undergraduate interest in business peaked long ago – 1987 to be precise, the same year Gordon Gekko famously declared "greed, for lack of a better word, is good” in the movie “Wall Street.” Coincidence?

Students, has the economy influenced what you’re majoring in? Are you more likely to take pages from the books of computer science majors Bill Gates and Mark Zuckerberg instead of emulating good ol’ Mr. Gekko?

Imagine working hard throughout high school, getting accepted to the college or university of your choice and receiving a scholarship covering all or part of your tuition. Now imagine being asked to give back even a tiny percentage of that award.

Wait...WHAT?! Exactly...but that's what happened at Arizona State University when former baseball coach Pat Murphy requested a number of his players relinquish all or part of their athletic scholarships for the 2006-2007 academic year so that the coaching staff could enroll several transfer students they had been recruiting through a program Murphy called Devil-to-Devil. His actions may not have been discovered unless a parent of a player complained about the process to ASU’s athletics director and after an investigation, the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) agreed that this practice was problematic and violated rules. The punishment: ASU has been banned from the college playoffs this coming season and must vacate numerous wins, including the team’s 2007 Pacific-10 Conference title and trip to the College World Series; the school also received three years' probation, scholarship reductions and recruiting limitations. Though ASU has taken responsibility for not monitoring the baseball program more closely, it intends to appeal the NCAA’s decision.

As for Murphy – who echoes the name of his program with several other questionable practices – he’s not coaching anywhere at the moment but will not go unpunished. He was forced to resign last year and the NCAA bestowed a one-year show-cause penalty upon him so that any institution interested in hiring him in the next 12 months must not only defend why it is hiring him but also how it will monitor his behavior to prevent further violations.

This situation is shady any way you slice it but I do feel for the ASU students and coaches who are being penalized for events they had no part in. The beauty of college scholarships is that they don’t have to be repaid, allowing students to graduate with little to no student loan or credit card debt. To be clear, what Murphy did was wrong but by limiting the amount of scholarship awards and financial aid ASU can disperse, he’s not the one being truly punished – it’s the deserving students that are being hurt the most.

Finding the necessary amount of financial aid to fund your education can be difficult. Requirements often include complicated forms and applications, lengthy essays and rigid guidelines…some, but not all: Certain providers, like Zinch, are making it much easier to score some super sweet scholarship opportunities. Like this week’s Scholarship of the Week, the Zinch Sweet-Diggity-Dawg Scholarship: It's worth $20,000. Let's learn some more about it, shall we?

To enter, you must be a high school student with a minimum 2.0 GPA and an 80-percent complete Zinch profile. Semi-finalists are selected for this scholarship based on their profiles then they compete, "March Madnezz" style, in a bracket of 64 students. Students go head-to-head, with the best Zinch profile advancing until only one student remains and claims the $20,000 scholarship.

The application deadline is in just under three weeks (January 15th) so you still have time to spruce up your Zinch profile (or create one if you don’t already have one). With $20,000 at stake, it’s best to bring your A-game! To get more info about this scholarship, visit Zinch's site and to find additional scholarship awards, try our free scholarship search today!