The RLWI Scholarship
In the United States, over 60% of adults have never received financial education and only 57% understand basic financial topics such as calculating interest and recognizing the effects of inflation. For college students, this lack of financial knowledge is a major issue. Over 43% of college students are not making payments on their student loans, less than 24% of millennials demonstrate basic financial literacy, and 66% of millennials have nothing saved for retirement.
The Ryan Leslie Wealth Institute (RLWI) believes that strong financial literacy skills can help individuals achieve long-term life goals. That’s why we award financially savvy students with scholarships each year.
RLWI awards scholarships to selected applicants from all educational backgrounds, who are able to clearly demonstrate strong financial literacy skills, a commitment to achieving their short and long-term financial goals, and outstanding academic performance.
Next Deadline: 11:59 PM PST on January 31st 2025
Eligibility. The eligibility requirements for the Scholarship are as follows:
- Open to students from all majors.
- Must be enrolled in a college or university located within the United States or its territories and accredited by the U.S. Department of Education at the time of application and at the time the Scholarship is awarded. A list may be found at this link.
- Must be at least 17 years old at the time of application.
- Must be a United States citizen and resident of the United States.
- Must have a minimum 3.0 GPA.
- Open to technical, vocational, undergraduate, graduate, and professional students.
- Employees of RLWI, its affiliates, and any other party involved in administering the Scholarship program, as well as their immediate family members or household members, are not eligible.
To apply for our scholarship, students must meet the minimum scholarship eligibility requirements listed above and complete the online scholarship application by the application deadline. Applications received after the close of each application cycle will be automatically applied to the next deadline.
Students must also complete a 700-word essay describing their financial goals and how they plan to achieve them and provide a 2-minute video on the specified topic below. The use of Generative AI (such as ChatGPT) is discouraged in both the video and essay. We advise applicants to focus on personal stories that express their real, thoughtful human experience. Responses suspected of being AI-generated will be disqualified.
Applications will be judged based on the applicants' written and verbal communication skills, financial literacy skills, demonstrated commitment to achieving stated financial goals, academic performance and the creativity, clarity and overall strength of their scholarship essay and video.
Essay Submission Requirements:
- Topic
- What are your short and long-term financial goals?
- How do you plan to achieve these goals?
- What financial strategies (such as budgeting, investing, saving and debt management) will you use and why?
- Length: 700-750 words. Essays over 750 words will be disqualified.
Video Submission Requirements:
- Topic: Tell us about a time when you used financial strategies (such as budgeting, investing, saving and debt management) to support a financial decision.
- File Name: Please name the video file [Year][Last Name] [First Name] [University]-RLWI Scholarship
- Length: 2:00-2:15 min. Videos over 2:15 min in length will be disqualified.
- Format: RLWI will accept MP4, .MOV and WMV file types.
- Size: Videos must be compressed under 1G (gigabyte)
- Resolution: 720p-1080p
Please begin the video with a short introduction including your name, school and major.
