Montana is not immune to the inflated costs of higher education, and small-town communities may face unique challenges in supporting their youth financially for further schooling. 

For many, rising education costs require sizeable loans, as well as battling it out on the enormous and difficult-to-navigate scholarship circuit. The search is grueling, and the additional discouragement of running into applications with seemingly hyper-specific eligibility requirements can cause serious frustration.  

At a glimpse, these scholarships could seem exclusive with their niche requirements, but a closer look reveals the opportunity and versatile role they play in their intended communities. 

If you inquire further, you’ll find that hyper-specific scholarships play a quiet but essential role in rural Montana communities by helping support rural students through higher education; integral to their potential impact are the avenues through which they get their scholarships to the public. 

The largest resources for finding niche scholarships are aggregate-style sites, which collate many smaller scholarships into indexes for students to sort through and locate the right applications. One such resource is Reach Higher Montana (RMH). 

RMH, whose mission “helps students strategically pursue educational opportunities,” has a large and growing list of Montana scholarships to search through on their website (reachhighermontana.org). Resources like RMH are crucial in delivering hyper-specific scholarship fund information to the right student. 

They also offer an annual “It’s Scholarship Time!” general application, which simultaneously submits an applicant’s information to multiple scholarships, alleviating applicant workloads. 

Another aggregate resource through the Central Montana Foundation, located in Lewiston, works with Area Scholarship Clearinghouse to provide their general application aimed toward Central Montana students. Their application allows students to be considered for a variety of niche funds like the Audra A. Henga scholarship for Central Montana students pursuing  family and consumer sciences or music. 

Beyond large organizations, some rural Montana areas have created their own scholarship information resources. 

Hannah Christiaens, a Montana State University student who graduated from Valier High School, in Northwest Montana, said that her high school has its own community scholarship general application. Similarly, many other small Montana towns keep a record of nearby funds students can look through and apply for.  

But, with many small scholarships having tight requirements, there is always a chance some may not find a suitable applicant every year. 

Hannah said that in Valier, the availability and utilization of these scholarships occasionally fluctuates. She said that in her graduating class,  2020, some local scholarships were not used due to eligibility requirements, but “the opportunity was always there if a student was qualified.” In circumstances where some scholarships go unused, the funds are typically added back to the pot for next year. 

The support these scholarships provide can make a world of difference in some students’ ability to pursue higher education. 

“Being from a small town, it can feel a lot harder to imagine going to college because you are so closed off from the big world, and these scholarships and just the general focus on getting kids into secondary education really helped me personally fight through that fear,” Hannah said. 

Beyond simply assisting individuals in close-knit towns like Valier, the skill value recipients acquire during their time in higher education also frequently comes back to the area. Hannah said that while most funds don't specifically aim for this, it’s often a benefit the town sees. 

Hannah gave her sister as an example: a Valier scholarship recipient who now teaches the next generation of children in their neighboring town with her Education degree. She also said that many of her peers who graduated with Agricultural and technical degrees could bring that knowledge home to their family operations to continue their vital work. 

 “The students can see that they’re really seen, and really being heard, and really being helped,” said Hannah. 

Helping small-town students feel seen, heard, and supported is not easy. One challenge scholarship organizers face is choosing eligibility requirements that ensure their intended students are truly able to access those resources. 

The Madison County CattleWomen (MCCW), an affiliate of the Montana CattleWomen, recently went through this process as they are offering their own scholarship for the first time this year. 

While unused scholarship dollars due to tight eligibility will still be used in the future, organizations like the MCCW work carefully to avoid this problem. 

Rebekah Clark, an MSU student and head of the MCCW said, “sometimes they’re so niche that people aren’t going to apply to them because they feel like they don’t qualify.” 

"When it came to choosing their requirements, the MCCW focused on Madison County students from agricultural backgrounds,” said Rebekah. “We all know how tough it is.” 

“There are obviously exceptions,” she said, “but a lot of those kids, they aren’t coming from money, or they don’t have a lot that they can use to put towards their schooling. Knowing how hard it is, you want to lessen the load on other people who come from that background.” 

Additionally, when doing preliminary research, Rebekah looked back on the funds she had received from her hometown, Ennis. She found that many did not apply to home-schooled students, or other nontraditional students such as those with GEDs. Because of this, the MCCW chose not to limit the scholarship to exclusively graduates of public high schools. 

“We wanted to also create a resource for those kids who maybe wouldn’t be eligible for the other scholarships that are through the schools,” said Rebekah. 

Like many similar organizations, Rebekah and the MCCW give back simply to support others, “whether that’s supporting people who have come from the same background as you, or somebody who just needed a little bit of a boost to get where they’d like to be in life.” 

These tight-knit, hyper-specific scholarship networks across Montana provide invaluable support to students with dreams of pursuing higher education and, in line with Montana culture, continue to foster a sense of community and strength of spirit.