DUBOIS – Donors who choose to support the education of students through scholarship programs have an opportunity to make a much larger impact through a program currently offered by Penn State.
The Open Doors Scholarship Program offers a permanent 2:1 match for gifts made to help students with financial need.
This means a gift of $30,000 by a donor becomes $90,000 with Penn State’s match. The program is only available for a limited window of time, though April 30, 2018.
Donors who have already taken advantage of this opportunity at Penn State DuBois include Ross Kester, a retired instructor in the campus engineering program.
He established a scholarship in memory of his former colleague William H. Keown.
Long-time campus supporter Charles Snapp, Christine Beretsel ’86, Robert G. Johnson ’71, William ’73 and Nancy Allenbaugh, David ’69 and Deborah Ross, Farmer’s National Bank and the Symmco Foundation have also put their names on Open Door Scholarships.
It will help students with educational costs that they may otherwise not be able to cover on their own. As a result of these recent donations, campus scholarship endowments will increase by $900,000, resulting in an additional $40,500 available to students annually.
“The generous commitment of our donors to scholarship endowments and other projects enable our DuBois campus to fulfill its mission of educating the citizens of our region and sustaining its service to the region,” said Chancellor M. Scott McBride.
“Now, through this one-time, two-to-one match, Open Doors Scholarship Program, donors can triple the already vital impact of helping students to pursue and complete a coveted Penn State degree.”
Illustrating how vital that impact is are studies that have found only 50 percent of students from low-income households graduate in six years.
The Open Doors program is aimed at addressing such issues by funding scholarships, as well as pilot programs, that will help students transition into college while maintaining jobs.
At Penn State DuBois, 90 percent of campus students have a need for financial aid. Though $450,000 in scholarship dollars is currently awarded annually, many students remain in need. Â The average unmet need per student is over $7,000 a year.
For more information, contact Director of Development Jean Wolf, at 814-372-3038 or jaw57@psu.edu.
