CHET Dream Big Scholarship Competition
Scholarship Sponsored by Connecticut Higher Education Trust
Overview
Education helps build a child's future. This program offers students the opportunity to win savings for education in a CHET 529 account, with awards reaching up to $20,000. The contest accepts original creative submissions and is organized by grade group to ensure age-appropriate prompts. Details on submission requirements and prize tiers are provided in the following sections.
Description: A statewide contest that awards education savings through judged creative entries by K–12 students.
Award Value: Awards include a maximum individual prize of $20,000; additional prize tiers are available and detailed below.
- Purpose: Encourage students to plan for future education.
- Awards funded to support education savings via CHET 529 accounts.
- Open to K–12 students, grouped by grade level.
- Multiple prize tiers to recognize a broad set of participants.
How it works for 2026
Students submit original work in one of three formats: essay, video, or artwork. Each grade group receives a specific prompt tailored to their developmental level. Submissions are reviewed and judged according to the contest criteria for creativity and relevance to the prompt. Participants must follow the prompt for their grade group when preparing entries.
Description: Acceptable submission formats are essays, videos, and visual artwork (painting, drawing, or illustration).
Eligibility: Entries are grouped by grade: K–4, 5–8, and 9–12, with distinct prompts for each group.
- Submit one original essay, video, or artwork per student.
- Follow the specific prompt for your grade group.
- Promotes creativity and community-focused thinking.
- K–4th grade: What does "Dream Big" mean to you? Draw, write, or show us your biggest dream and how it could help the people around you.
- 5th–8th grades: What does it mean to "Dream Big" for not just yourself, but for the people around you? Describe a dream you have that could make your community stronger.
- 9th–12th grades: What does "Dreaming Big" look like when the odds aren't in your favor? Tell us about a barrier—personal, social, or systemic—that exists in your community, and how you or others could overcome it.
2026 prizes for winning students
The contest awards multiple tiers of prizes to recognize outstanding submissions across grade groups. Top-level awards include three grand prizes of $20,000, one for each age group. Additional monetary awards are distributed across mid- and lower-tier winners, and a subset of participating schools will receive technology grants. Prize funds are intended to support educational savings and resources.
Award Value: Three Grand Prizes of $20,000 (one per age group); 24 awards of $5,000 (eight per age group); 240 awards of $500 (eighty per age group); and 10 participating schools receive $5,000 in tech equipment.
- 3 Grand Prize winners: $20,000 each (one per grade group).
- 24 winners: $5,000 each (eight per grade group).
- 240 winners: $500 each (eighty per grade group).
- 10 participating schools: $5,000 in technology equipment each.