There are thousands upon thousands of scholarships and institutions dedicated to give free education for all. The question however is: “With countless scholarships opportunities up for grab, are there enough for all?”

With is question at hand, let us look at several types of scholarship opportunities that would somehow give us the final view that there are enough scholarship opportunities for all.

Academic scholarship

The most popular type of scholarship grant is the academic scholarship. Here, applicants must be eligible to keep up with the academic requirements of the sponsor. Most applicants who take this type of scholarship can either be highly proficient in academics or an average person so long as grades can be maintained.

Athletic scholarship

Next to academic scholarship, the athletic scholarship is the second most popular type of scholarship that is up for grab. Applicants of athletic scholarship are usually chosen but it is still open for all. The opportunities here are endless since there are several types of activities you might be proficient with that would fall to athletic scholarship. However, since there are many athletes would want to finish college through athletic scholarship, there is a fierce competition between applicants.

Colleges and universities give both the academic and athletic scholarships but there are other institutions that give these types of scholarships.

Institutional scholarships

Here, the sponsors are groups or institutions who willingly devote themselves in providing students with the opportunities to finish college without worrying about the finances. Institutions can have their special groups to answer. There are institutions that grant scholarships to Hispanics, African-Americans, minorities, women, disabled, and Native Americans. There are also institutions that provide free education on a specific field such as Nursing, Engineering, Medicine, Law, Business, and Sciences among others.

Institutions would also refer to religious groups that could provide free education to their members who qualify for the grant. It would also include large corporations that stretch their services in providing students with free education. This does not stop here, after finishing a degree, the scholars will surely get an immediate job under the same company that gave then their free education.

Institutions can also include local governments. Like large corporations, becoming a local government scholarship would provide you an immediate job soon after you finish the degree.

Institutions would also include unions that provide free educational opportunities to children of their members.

All these could give each scholarship seeking every chance to get free education. The task, however, is to make sure that you get the right scholarship suited to your need.

Nursing jobs are always available regardless of the times since the medical world grows and more and more people need attention with each passing day. Those who are trained for nursing jobs are unlikely to miss jobs and for this reason more and more people are training for these courses.

There are shortages of well trained and certified personnel in the medical world and to cover for the shortages, free CNA training courses are offered by different medical institutions. This is very helpful as there are great numbers of people out there who love nursing jobs but lack of fees to get proper training hinders them from reaching out to their goal.

Nursing assistants don’t need to have any medical background as everything they require in their line of duty is taught during training. There are programs that last for three months and can be done online after which one goes for the on job training then is ready to work once the exams are passed. Nursing homes, the Red Cross and other care facilities offer these courses. Mostly, free CNA training courses are offered to displaced homeowners who are regarded as men or women who raise children alone without any employment skills to secure better paying jobs.

Free training should not be taken for granted since it requires energy and time investment as well as dedication if one is to achieve their desired positions. Nursing assistants are required to work most of the time and one should know what he is involving himself in and the kind of things expected from his part. While some free training courses may seem free indeed, it helps to remember that something maybe required in return for the favor. There are those who may need you to work for them on voluntary basis for a certain period of time after training.

In other free CNA training programs, you may be required to pay for your supplies, shoes and lab coat as the tuition fee is taken care of for you by the institution in question. This may also include things like books and other required equipment. However, landing on a free course is still a great boost and eventually you will be smiling your way to a great job. It is also not too hard to get sponsors if you really need the training regardless of the eventual sacrifices you might need to make.

University education had always been, by definition, elitist. Reserved for the brightest or the richest. But in recent years, initiatives from Ivy League and Oxbridge universities have used web platforms like EdX and iTunes U to bring the experience of top flight education to eager learners across the world. Now an explosion of popularity for Coursera has taken e-learning to a new level, with 1.3million students following 200 courses, from 33 top universities. For free.

Let that sink in a moment. As the cost of a traditional degree rockets towards £9K a year in the UK, and between $27-40K in the US, Coursera has enabled people across the world to access the latest knowledge, for the cost of an internet connection.

From the 11th century beginnings of Oxford University through to the 17th century launch of Harvard right through to the 1960s Polytechnics of the UK and the Community Colleges of the US, there has always been either a barrier of academic achievement or some sort of payment required. (Not to mention it taking a good few centuries for ‘being a girl’ to stop being an issue). While the UK had student grants until the late 1990s, students had to at least have the A Level results to get on to a course in the first place.

Even the UK’s flagship distance learning college, the Open University, has had it’s subsidies wrenched away, sending module costs soaring to not far off a bricks and mortar degree.

According to Techcrunch, while the Coursera team initially had to pound the pavement looking for partnerships from America’s top institutions, now the situation is flipped:

‘Institutions are signing up in droves and it may not be long before Coursera’s acceptance rate mimics Harvard’s. Seventeen new universities have joined the startup’s platform, nearly doubling the number of schools that have signed on. That means Coursera’s platform now hosts about 200 courses from 33 international and domestic schools and it now reaches over 1.3 million students around the world.’

So with tuition costs higher than ever, how does Coursera do it and is it scalable to the point where, hell, anyone can get a top education for free?

Well, it got some investment cash in April this year, but that $16 million was not a gift and it won’t last forever. Coursera is a ‘for-profit’ organisation and a few money making initiatives have been mooted, including charging students for certificates, sponsorship from businesses and acting as a go-between for students and employers.

While the number of students is growing, there is an obvious ceiling. Simply, if everyone is studying online and no-one attends the real-life Unis, those schools cease to exist and so does their contribution to Coursera. And there is one other whopping element of university life missing from Coursera: the social life. Networking and collaborating are as vital as absorbing facts and producing essays. Which is where Coursera competitor, Udacity may take the biscuit.

What do you think? Could initiatives like Coursera provide education to those with a desire to learn who are on lower-incomes, leaving bricks and mortar schools to revert to catering for a very rich, pretty small elite? Or does Coursera and its ilk just add to a more flexible learning landscape?

To discuss online education and plenty more besides, make sure you sign up for an invite at http://www.quib.ly and we’ll let you know as soon as you can come in!