App to help ECC students research, secure scholarships

Elgin Community College is partnering with OneMain Financial, a personal finance company providing loan products, to help more students find scholarships to continue their education.

Through the partnership, ECC will be able to provide up to 1,000 students free access to the Scholly app through which they can get guidance and support to find, apply for, and win college scholarships.

"Moving on to a four-year college or university is something many of our students would like to do, but are unable to take that next step due to a lack of resources or understanding of just what support may be available to help them," said Sean Jensen, ECC director of transfer services.

The average college graduate earns more than $800,000 more than the average high school graduate by retirement age, according to a 2014 report by the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco.

Scholly is a comprehensive scholarship-matching platform that has helped students secure more than $35 million in scholarship awards. Students must set up an account and enter some basic personal information. The app makes a monthslong process of searching for scholarships more simple taking only minutes, company officials said.

"As a company focused on supporting financial education and workforce development, OneMain is well aware of the long-lasting benefits of a college education and we are committed to college readiness, retention and completion," said Sheldon Caplis, OneMain director of community engagement. "We encourage everyone interested in attending college to try Scholly to find out what kind of financial assistance may be available to help them take the steps they need toward a better education and a brighter financial future."

ECC students interested in downloading the app should first contact their advisers to receive the free code.