The Scholaroo story

Back when Ben Kaplan was a high school student, he didn’t have a clue how to pay for college. Growing up as a competitive tennis player, he always thought he’d go to school on a tennis scholarship. But after being diagnosed with a stress fracture in his lower back, he suddenly needed a different way to pay for school.

Enter the wonderful world of college scholarships. Kaplan discovered that there were scholarships out there for virtually every type of student, interest, or skill. After applying for three-dozen scholarships, Kaplan won two dozen of them and amassed $90,000 for college — enough to graduate from Harvard University virtually for free.

Determined to help others reach similar success, Kaplan wrote his first book, How to Go to College Almost for Free, during his senior year of college. Kaplan then booked himself on Oprah, Good Morning America, and 5,000 more TV and radio shows. His book became the best-selling book in the genre with more than two million copies in print.

For the next ten years, Ben spoke at more than 1,000 high school and college campuses on topics related to education and personal finance. Kaplan also launched his nationally syndicated Scholars & Dollars newspaper column at The Oregonian and wrote columns on student personal finance for major publications such as The New York Times, U.S. News & World Report, and Time. A regular guest expert for leading media outlets, he served as a weekly education correspondent for KMOX radio.

In 2019, Ben launched the first beta version of Scholaroo with a focus on making college scholarships searches less time-consuming and burdensome. In 2023, the Scholaroo team expanded the platform to cover multiple topics within student-related personal finance including financial aid, student loans, and credit cards.

And just like that, the latest version of Scholaroo was born.