Every year, when colleges open for admission, you will see many advertisements for federal government grants, scholarships and student loans. They will be plastered on billboards, as well as on the radio, TV, newspapers and magazines. You may even get brochures from your bank. Many of these advertisements will be targeted at kids graduating high school, but there are an increasing number now aimed at adult students. You might even see some ads for scholarships for single mothers.

Are you wondering why there are so many free grants for single mothers? While some will say that you should not look a gift horse in the mouth, it is not unreasonable to wonder about the hidden motives behind some of these scholarships. In the case of federal government grants, it is not so much motive as inertia. These grants are arguably legacies of President Lyndon B. Johnson’s Great Society political agenda in the 1960s, which was a continuation of President Kennedy’s New Frontier agenda, which was itself an extension of President Roosevelt’s post World War Two New Deal agenda.

So now you know the origin of the scholarships for single parents awarded by the federal government. But how about state government grants and scholarships? Why are they being offered? Some are probably like the federal government grants for educations. Some state governor or party set it up to get votes, but the bureaucracy ground on and on and grew even bigger and more bloated. But there are also state educational grants that were created to satisfy the needs of local industries. These scholarships are intended to get local residents trained in local colleges and then work in local businesses, a case of killing two birds with one stone.

You also probably know that large businesses like IBM, Microsoft, KPMG, etc. also award academic scholarships for college. They have scholarships that are open to everyone, but some also have scholarships open only to women, e.g. Google’s Anita Borg scholarship, and KPMG used to award women-only scholarships from time to time. These scholarships are usually very generous, paying the entire tuition fee and sometimes even your expenses. You probably also know about the athletic scholarships awarded by large sports organizations and clubs. Both types of scholarships (academic and athletic) have the same aims: find and recruit talent; and prevent competitors from gaining access to those talents. Of course, these scholarships are very, very competitive and most adult students do not have a chance of obtaining them.

There are also scholarships for mothers that are provided by women’s charities. Non-profit organizations like the AARP and JRF offer scholarships to older women with children so that they can return to the workforce in a competitive manner. On the other hand, others award their educational grants to women irrespective of age, e.g. the PEO. Different charities have different policies regarding this matter, but they all have the same aim – help women get a better education so that they can get better jobs and earn more money to support their families.

In the end, different types of scholarships and grants are given for different reasons. Government (both state and federal) scholarships and charitable grants normally have less of an ulterior motive, and are often easier to qualify for. Scholarships awarded by businesses tend to be very generous, but you should be very careful of their fine print … assuming you can even qualify for their rigorous criteria.