Certainly someone is filling out these forms.
No, Chris, as hard as it may be to believe, that's not correct. I share Yelnad's experience.
When I was on active duty I spent some time with the folks on the USS BOWFIN Submarine Memorial scholarship board. Each year they give away 10-12 scholarships of up to $2500 each, and this sum makes the difference between getting a degree now or having to wait for another shore tour.
The initial plan was for the scholarships to be needs-based but, faced with a huge bureaucratic task of avoiding discrimination accusations, they decided to rank the candidates on their written & interview skills and then give scholarships to the top group. This isn't some neglected estate with a careless trustee-- this is old veteran submariners doing good things for young submariners.
Eligibility is to be a submariner or the immediate family of a submariner. Keep in mind that this tends to be a relatively smart, highly motivated group of fund-seeking weasels (I mean that in a good way) with solid presentation skills. Just the kind of people you want to have working with expensive engineering plants and high explosives.
Every year the scholarships went begging for candidates. Every year 50-75% of the funds went to my guys because we created a fill-in-the-blank template which was submitted with my (personalized) fill-in-the-blank recommendation. We called it a "$1000/page package". I took the time to check that the interested people were going to make the deadlines.
It's not that submariners are so well organized, because the rest of my command could have plagiarized our system and did not. The difference is that motivated yet ignorant college candidates were shown and system and then gently nagged to follow through.
In a couple years my kid will be following the same route. I'll fill out a FAFSA because it carries a high degree of profitability (especially considering that I'm paid nothing for my time). I'll also be checking the latest tactics with people like Yelnad and scouring the net for scholarships. I suspect that it'll be as easy as picking up pennies off the sidewalk, only a lot more profitable.