Cassie Donegan will never have to worry about student loans, and it’s all thanks to pageants.
The new Miss America, who has been competing in pageants since she was 9, told Business Insider that she graduated “100% free of any college debt” thanks to scholarship money she won through the organization.
Donegan, 28, was awarded $50,000 after being crowned the 98th Miss America at the Walt Disney Theater in Orlando on September 7. She also got an additional $3,000 for winning a talent award during the preliminary competition.
The longtime pageant queen said she previously earned $27,000 from the organization, including a $15,000 scholarship after winning Miss New York in July.
Donegan said Miss America remains relevant today because it’s one of the “largest scholarship providers for women in the country.”
“That alone is why people should be aware that we exist,” she added. “Miss America is literally changing the game for thousands of women across the country. I would not have been able to make some of the academic decisions I wanted to make, to set me up for the career that I have now, because I wouldn’t have been able to afford it.”
Donegan earned her bachelor’s degree in musical theater from Belmont University in Nashville. She’s now pursuing a bachelor’s degree in leadership with a concentration in counseling at Ames Christian University.
“It was a huge stress reliever being able to choose the college that I wanted to go to because, truthfully, I didn’t have a full understanding of what student loans were like or what the annual price tag of a university was,” Donegan said.
In addition to being an actor and singer, Donegan is also the CEO of Southern Sitters, a women-led childcare company. The pageant queen told Business Insider she plans to use the money from her national scholarship to pursue a master’s degree in business administration, with a concentration in nonprofit management leadership.
“To know that I have that potential in front of me, and to be able to do that without being under financial strain is huge,” Donegan said. “I recognize how blessed I am to have that as my reality moving forward.”
The Miss America Organization became one of the first organizations in the US to provide college scholarships to women, awarding its first one in 1945, according to its website. It’s one of the biggest differences between the competition and the Miss USA pageant, which offers a yearlong salary to its winner instead.
In addition to the $50,000 prize for the national winner, the organization offers scholarships ranging from $5,000 to $10,000 for those who place in the top five.
It offers a separate $2,500 scholarship for Miss America candidates who are in the field of elementary education, and has also awarded nearly $1.5 million in cash scholarships through its Miss America’s Teen pageant since it was launched in 2005.
Miss America 2025 Abbie Stockard previously told Business Insider that she began competing in the pageant organization to help her family while she attended Auburn University.
“My mom was working four jobs at the time, and I was looking for a way to relieve some of that financial burden on my family,” said Stockard, adding that she acquired over $89,000 in scholarship money from the organization.
A number of Miss America 2026 contestants also credited the organization with helping them pay their way through college. According to Miss Arizona’s Instagram, current titleholder Tiffany Ellington used her scholarship money to earn an MBA.
And, according to her contestant bio, Miss New Hampshire Xanthi Russell earned $60,000 in scholarships during her seven years in the Miss America system.
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