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Many colleges and universities receive grants to provide student aid to individuals. For example, The Duke Endowment consistently provides funding to Duke University for college grants to individuals.  In 2004, The Starr Foundation gave $5,000,000 to Temple University in Pennsylvania for college grants and the Community Foundation for the National Capital Region gave $5,000,000 to the Posse Foundation in New York.

College grants are offered to individuals to pay for college educational opportunities.  Any individual can apply for college grants if they meet the eligibility requirements.  The best way to find out which foundations give college grants is to go to your local library and conduct research.  Local libraries have foundation directories and resources available to use at no charge.  Many libraries have access to the Foundation Directory Online so that you can do a search on “scholarships” or “student aid” to find college grants. The Foundation Directory Online allows you to search by Grants or by Foundations. It is a good idea to use both search engines.  There are at least 1,039 foundations in the United States that give college grants to individuals through scholarships and over 2,000 foundations that give to scholarship funds.  According to the Foundation Directory Online, the top ten foundations that give the most in college grants to individuals are:

 

• The Starr Foundation - $188,856,235      
  
• Walton Family Foundation, Inc. - $106,902,909
  
• Wal-Mart Foundation - $100,998,323
  
• Open Society Institute- $80,033,357
  
• Greater Kansas City Community Foundation - $73,434,915
  
• The San Francisco Foundation - $65,295,022
  
• Verizon Foundation - $61,294,961
  
• Marin Community Foundation - $57,6090,426
  
• The MBNA Foundation - $50,933,355
  
• Peninsula Community Foundation - $49,064,684

Other big givers of college grants to individuals include the Kalamazoo Community Foundation, Winston-Salem Foundation, Hawaii Community Foundation, New Hampshire Charitable Foundation, Clark Foundation, and The Ford Family Foundation.