Hormel Inspired Pathways is committed to helping all students realize the dream of a college education. In addition to promising tuition-free college opportunities to all children of our employees, we’re also providing expert college financial aid guidance and a robust resource center that will give students the opportunity to access all of the college funding and guidance available.
The resources range from filling out government financial aid applications to finding and applying to a variety of different scholarships.
Promise Programs Directory
This is a database of state and local government-run Promise programs Hormel Foods employees could qualify for. As part of receiving an Inspired Pathways scholarship, students must first find and apply for Promise programs they are eligible for.
The directory below summarizes the state government, local organization, and university run Promise programs that serve areas near Hormel Foods U.S. locations. The offerings of the Promise programs below vary widely. Some even offer a Promise for 4-year colleges.
Important note: Many of the Promise programs run by state governments, local organizations, and universities have minimum GPAs, SAT scores, volunteer service hours, 9th grade deadlines, essays and/or other requirements. Be sure to read the eligibility requirements before applying. If you have questions, the directory lists the contact information for each of the Promise programs.
Scholarship Search Engines
Below are the top 3 scholarship search engines. They have scholarships for literally everything from gaming skills to community service impact. Beginning your Junior year, or even earlier, you should spend a little time each month searching for scholarships related to topics that are important to you. Additionally, you can continue applying for scholarships once you’re in college, so it’s never too late and these sites have billions of dollars in scholarships offered.
Fastweb.com
The “leading online resource in finding scholarships to help you pay for school.” One of the largest and easiest scholarship databases, all you have to do is fill out a detailed profile and then you’ll immediately match with potential, targeted scholarships. The site has over 1.5 million scholarship options, which turns out to be over $3.4 billion dollars worth of financial aid funding!
Scholarships.com
Works with both colleges and students. They try to help match you to awards that will help pay for your college–$19 billion worth of scholarships are online now! Create a profile, fill in some details, and get started!
CollegeNet.com
Operates Mach 25 scholarship search engine, which allows you to search for aid by keyword or other profile features. Make sure to try searching topics important to you.
FAFSA
FAFSA (Free Application for Federal Student Aid) is the Federal government’s official college financial aid eligibility calculator and every college in the country uses it. After a student completes FAFSA using their parents’ tax information, they will send back an estimation of how much a family can afford to pay for college. This information can then be provided to colleges by the family. Based off that information, colleges will calculate scholarship and loan awards and report that to the student and their family.
Residency Rules by State
Each state has their own criteria for receiving in-state tuition. It is important that you determine your eligibility early on in the process.
CSS Profile
The CSS Profile is the second most common system used by colleges to determine financial aid award packages. It is very similar to FAFSA, it requires more information, though not by all schools. The schools that accept the CSS profile are those with very well-funded financial aid and scholarship programs.