Smart About Money?Prove It and Win a $2,500.00 Scholarship.
What You Are Writing About:
What does “financial independence” mean to your generation?
600 to 800 words. Your own work. Cite anything you borrow.
Note the wording. Not what the phrase means in a textbook, and not what it meant to your parents. What it means to the people you actually sit next to in class, paying what you are paying, entering the job market you are entering.
Write it the way you would explain it to your roommate at eleven at night, not the way you would write it for a grade. One thing that actually happened to you will beat five paragraphs of definitions every time. If you looked something up, say where.
We’re less interested in a polished answer than a true one. Tell us what financial independence means to you, specifically. Not what it means in general. Essays that could have been written by anyone will score lower than essays that could only have been written by you.
How to Apply
Read the four requirements above and if you are a finalist, you will be asked to provide proof.Write the essay.Submit your application with your essay by 11:59p MST on October 15, 2026.
One form, on this page. Nothing gets mailed and nothing gets paid. If a site is charging you a fee to apply for this scholarship, it is not us.
How We Pick
The scorecard is published because making you guess would waste your time.
| Weight | The question we are answering |
|---|---|
| 40% | Do you understand what financial independence means, and can you apply it to real life? |
| 30% | Is it written well, and is it yours? |
| 30% | Why does winning this award matter to you, at this specific point in your life? |
Every essay is read by a person on our team.
Where the Money Actually Goes
The $2,500 goes to your school and lands on your student account, tagged to your student ID number. It does not come to you personally.
Why a Family Office is Paying for This
Trajan Wealth runs a Family Office. In plain terms, that means one team handling a family investment portfolio, their tax planning and preparation, and their estate documents in the same room and on the same calendar, so the three stop working against each other. That arrangement was historically reserved for the ultra-wealthy. We looked at that as an arbitrary ceiling and built ours for all levels. Trajan Family Office, a Family Office built for Yours.
Here is the part that has something to do with you.
Almost every family who sits down with us has been making money decisions in separate rooms for thirty years, and most of them can name the one they would take back. A tax bill nobody saw coming. A 401(k) left behind at a job they quit in 2004. A house sold in the wrong year by four months.
None of that is complicated. It is the kind of thing you catch early if somebody taught you what to look for at nineteen instead of fifty-nine. Which is the whole reason this scholarship exists. We would rather pay $2,500 for that lesson now than watch another person buy it later at full price.
More on the Trajan Family Office advantage and on what it means to work with a fiduciary, if you are curious what we do the other 364 days a year.
Write the Essay
You already have opinions about money. Almost everybody does. Almost nobody writes them down, which is exactly why this is winnable.
Opens on August 15, 2026. Closes at 11:59PM MST on October 15, 2026. Winner will be named on November 15, 2026. Parents, faculty, financial aid offices: send this to a student, then take the free financial assessment for yourself.
Plan Smarter. Dream Bigger.
