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February is a short month, but it's jam-packed with celebrations.  I'm not just talking about Valentine's Day and Mardi Gras.  February is Black History Month, a reminder that long before President Obama took office, African Americans were doing some pretty amazing things.  Black History Month is a great opportunity to learn about and commemorate important people and events that often go overlooked in American history.  It's also a great time to seek out new scholarship opportunities.

Several local scholarships have Black History Month themes, and we've featured a small sampling of them on our Black History Month Scholarships resource page.

If you're an African American student looking to make your own contribution to Black history, and history in general, a great place to start is with our list of African American scholarships.  After all, there's nothing like a college education to help you achieve your goals and change the world.

In addition to raising awareness of the important roles African Americans have played throughout American history, two of the major goals of Black History Month are combating injustice and promoting equality--after all, its original dates were chosen to celebrate two key players in the early civil rights movement, Abraham Lincoln and Frederick Douglass.  Students who have taken part in efforts with similar goals may want to take some time this month to commemorate their own achievements by applying for community service scholarships.

To apply for the scholarship awards mentioned above or to learn about other sources of money for college, conduct a free college scholarship search.

by Agnes Jasinski

It’s a well-known fact that disparities exist when you look at the college graduation rates of black and Hispanic students versus white and Asian students. Two reports released yesterday, however, included data on colleges where those disparities aren’t as wide, suggesting that there are schools that are doing much better than others when it comes to graduating minority students.

The reports, released by The Education Trust and based on several years of database comparisons from College Results Online, looked at both private colleges and public universities. Many of those schools that boast small gaps (or a lack of a gap at all) have programming in place that promotes academic achievement across all student groups, according to an article in The Chronicle of Higher Education. At the University of California at Riverside, where 63 percent of Hispanic students, 67 percent of black students, and 62 percent of white students graduate, administrators have focused on retention and boosting students’ leadership skills to keep them coming back. At the University of North Carolina-Greensboro, where 56 percent of black students and 51 percent of white students graduate within six years, administrators have focused on student success as part of their mission, and believe that it is more cost-effective for the school to have students graduate rather than to recruit new students, according to the reports.

According to an article from Inside Higher Ed, even those poor performers—Wayne State University, where there is a 34 percent gap between graduation rates for white and black students, and California State University at Chico, which graduates about 31 percent of black students, 41.5 percent of Hispanic students, and 57.5 percent of white students—are taking steps to improve their graduation rates. At Chico, for example, those numbers actually represent an improvement after the campus opened a minority student success center. At Wayne State, access to need-based financial aid has been expanded to address a big reason why many at-risk students drop out of college.

Overall, about 60 percent of the country’s white students, 49 percent of Hispanic students, and 40 percent of black students graduate with six years, according to The Education Trust. These new reports, however, show that there are steps colleges can take to improve upon those numbers and to improve retention across student groups.

When Michael Jackson died, the world lost not only a talented pop musician, but also a notable philanthropist. Over the course of his career, Michael Jackson donated over $300 million to at least 39 charitable organizations and also made generous financial contributions to numerous individuals, especially children and their families. While many of his charitable acts focused on helping sick or injured children around the globe, he also made substantial contributions to education.

One of the charities Michael Jackson supported most generously and publicly was the United Negro College Fund, which helps support African American students in their college goals. He first began supporting the UNCF in 1984 and participated in several fundraisers for the organization. One of his donations established the Michael Jackson Scholarship, which has existed as an endowed scholarship since 1986, supporting students attending college with the goal of pursuing careers in the performing arts. His generous contributions have allowed the UNCF to extend scholarship opportunities to hundreds of African American students over the last 25 years.

To learn more about the Michael Jackson Scholarship, you can visit the UNCF website. You may also want to do a scholarship search on Scholarships.com to find more scholarship awards for African American students and students interested in the arts. All Michael Jackson, a Michael Jackson fan website, has more information about Jackson's many charitable contributions.