$1 million grant from Bernard Osher Foundation will fund need-based scholarships for area residents returning to college for degrees
May 8, 2008
The Bernard Osher Foundation of San Francisco has awarded $1 million to the University of Richmond's School of Continuing Studies to endow need-based scholarships for area residents returning to college to earn degrees.
The funding comes with an additional grant of $50,000, enabling the school to begin offering the scholarships in fall 2008 to non-traditional students with at least a five-year cumulative gap in their educations. Return on the endowment will begin funding scholarships in 2009-10.
The scholarships will be available to persons pursuing undergraduate degrees who are 25 to 50 years old demonstrating academic promise and financial need. They can be applied only to tuition and cannot be used for books, lab fees, child care, transportation or any other purpose.
"Financing is often the most significant barrier faced by adults returning to school," said Jim Narduzzi, SCS dean. "This gift will eliminate that barrier for a significant number of students in the metropolitan area."
The gift will double the amount of scholarship assistance the school will be able to provide to adult students, "enabling those who otherwise wouldn't be able to attend the university to do so and to progress faster toward graduation," said Narduzzi. "The scholarships will allow adult students to complete their educations and still contribute to the workforce."
Narduzzi said Richmond is one of only 64 institutions that have received support from the Osher Foundation for reentry scholarships and one of only 16 to receive an endowment gift.
The foundation previously gave the school two $50,000 grants for reentry scholarships. Recipients have included a single mother of a handicapped child and twins who is earning a teaching license to move from being an instructional assistant to a classroom teacher, a single parent who works in law enforcement and is pursuing a degree in human resource management, and a woman whose college education was interrupted when her Air Force husband was transferred and she also had to care for an aging parent.