Colleges Column

As college students face an increasing amount of debt from student loans, one higher-education finance group is trumpeting the benefits of privately funded scholarships.

Scholarships financed by corporations, foundations, associations, and individuals have a positive influence on student performance and college-completion rates, according to a survey by the Minneapolis-based Citizens' Scholarship Foundation of America, a national nonprofit education-support group that helps administer privately financed scholarships.

The group conducted a national survey of 5,800 recipients of privately funded scholarships who graduated from college between 1990 and 1994. Of the respondents, 76 percent completed college in four years or less--compared with 31 percent of all students nationally--and 69.3 percent said their performance in school was enhanced because...