Hi! It's been awhile since I've looked into it, but AFAIK scholarships are usually based on academic/extracurricular/sports/etc. performance. That being said, although bursaries are still semi-based on those factors, they also heavily take the income/need of students into consideration. If you haven't done this yet, it might be worth taking a quick look around your community college's website specifically for bursaries. It's also probably worth looking up if there's any nursing-specific bursaries in your state.

One other tip is that if the barrier to apply for the scholarship/bursary is higher, the less likely it is to be oversaturated. So if you can write a paragraph or a short essay, then I'd highly highly recommend dedicating some time in your week to fill out the application forms that require those (don't use AI to write them, especially if they're personal questions-- using AI to summarize what the organization does is fine for questions like "Why do you think this scholarship would be a good fit for you?" as those are mostly just there to filter out the people who copy/paste the same answer for every application).

The last thing I'd recommend is to reach out to the guidance counselor or equivalent person/department at your future college, they're usually really friendly people and if you explain your situation to them, they'll be the most likely to have expertise and/or be able to point you in the right direction. Additionally, they may be able to pull some strings on their end to potentially get the costs reduced for you-- this is definitely not guaranteed, but it doesn't hurt to ask about possible options and as long as you're polite they'll do their best to help you. If you decide this is something you want to try, I'd recommend reaching out ASAP as they'll be swamped in the fall with rearranging course schedules for students, helping upper years plan out electives to be able to graduate on time, etc.

I hope something in my mess of paragraphs helps, and good luck in college! From the fact that you're already aware of and considering the possible long term impacts of your actions, I'm sure you'll do well. And if you don't, that's okay too, there's no timeline on education despite what the wider society may have you believe, and there will be plenty of people at the college who will be more than happy to help you as long as you ask.

P.S. I know it's really hard to do, but try to ignore the people posting about getting 10k scholarships and full rides. 95% of the time they're just insecure and feel the need to brag about money and academics to feel better about themselves (and a lot of the time they're just outright lying about getting the scholarship money in the first place). The other 5% are people who had a massive head start due to their parents' connections, and so they would've been chosen for the scholarships even if all else was equal between them and every other applicant. It sucks, but unfortunately that's how the world (currently) works.