There are so many benefits to earning a college degree, including being prepared for life and a career. Students with a college degree make more money and earn benefits from their employer. Getting that degree is a huge investment in time and money, but scholarships can help reduce the financial burden.
According to Kathy Bobbitt, director of Student Financial Aid, scholarships can also have the following impacts:
In 2014–15, more than $40 million in scholarships was awarded to students—and this total doesn’t include grants, graduate assistants, or waivers. More than 10,000 students received 21,269 scholarships.
Upon admission to UW, students are automatically considered for scholarships awarded by the Office of Admissions. These scholarships include, but are not limited to, the Hathaway scholarship, Trustees’ Scholars, Rocky Mountain Scholars, Western Undergraduate Exchange (WUE), and the John W. Hoyt Scholarship. The University of Wyoming also offers hundreds of other scholarships to thousands of accepted and current UW students through their scholarship system annually.
The Hathaway scholarship, which consists of both merit and need-based awards, provides Wyoming students attending the University of Wyoming or a Wyoming community college with additional resources to minimize their education costs. While this scholarship impacts a lot of students, it might not cover all expenses or be available for all students. There is still a need for other scholarships to help students receive the education that will help make an impact on the world.
There are a variety of ways to create scholarships that will have an impact on students. Endowments, which require a minimum amount of money to initiate, create scholarships that exist in perpetuity. The donor has the option of naming the scholarship and deciding the criteria. They stipulate what the funds can be used for (tuition, room and board, fees, etc.) and who can use them (graduate students, undergrads, students from certain counties in Wyoming, etc.).
Donors can also create non-endowed scholarships with a minimum donation and a commitment of 5 years, and donors also have the opportunity of deciding what the funds are used for and who they are awarded to.
No matter what method is used to create scholarships, the goal is for students to benefit. Scholarships allow students to pay for school without incurring massive amounts of debt, and they are rewarded for maintaining high academic standards.
Kathy Bobbitt explains, “Scholarships can make a huge difference to deserving students and, in turn, our hope is that these same students will achieve academic success and ‘give back’ to UW so future students have the same or even more opportunity for scholarship funding.”
