Winner of the 2009 Bipolar Lives Scholarship

A scholarship is one of the best ways to get money for college. It certainly beats the heck out of college loans.

I created the Bipolar Lives Scholarship in 2009. I was adding a new webpage to this website and I was horrified to discover how few suitable awards existed for people with bipolar disorder who needed and deserved money for college.

Many people with bipolar disorder have strong academic abilities but they may have been financially reckless due to their bipolar disorder and not have much in savings, or find college loans stressful.

To me, money for college seemed like an important way to try and support the bipolar community. Many people with bipolar fall victim to what is called "downward drift" - a systemic pattern of under achieving, despite being gifted. I hope that by providing a cash award I can encourage people with bipolar disorder to persist with higher education.

Another benefit is that the award encourages reflection, research and creativity. It is awarded solely on merit to the applicant who most eloquently conveys information about bipolar disorder (actually I prefer the term "manic depression") to the general public.

Some drug companies (yep - big pharma is not entirely evil) offer scholarships.

Also, the National Alliance for the Mentally Ill (NAMI) list some on their website. However, NAMI's main advice is to contact folks like Fastweb: Need money for college? Use FastWeb's free scholarship search to find information on more than 1.3 Million scholarships!

Higher education is SO important and so the Bipolar Lives Scholarship was born.

Now it is an annual award and has increased from $500 to $750.

This page showcases the winner of the very first award, as well as some of the entries that the judging panel were particularly impressed by.

Feel free to add comments and join the conversation. I hope some of you get inspired to enter for the current award (we run one every year now!)

My only regret is that college loans remain so burdensome and that more people with bipolar disorder have difficulty in obtaining the money they need for college.

Click below to see the 2009 winning entry, plus a few others that the judges particularly liked ...