Endowed Scholarships

[stateguy]

I received a couple of scholarships while at State that basically made it possible for me. B/c of that, I've always had the desire to endow a scholarship. I'm now at (or near) that spot. This is for academics and not athletics

To endow a scholarship, have to pledge $25k and they want it paid over 5 years (with some leeway). If not completely funded, the money rolls to the general scholarship fund and is not perpetual.

My question is - has anyone done this and have recs on rules for the scholarship? Things I've said are - specific major, GPA requirement, if it can go to someone from the county I went to HS in it will

Anything else?

 

[Maroon Eagle]

I have not done that but know several people who have and I have contributed to their scholarships.

So with that said, I have recommendations that aren’t necessarily rules:

1. When you do set it up, let your friends know.
2. Give them some background info about it— similar to what you’ve done here.
3. Invite them to donate online and ask them to include in the notes to designate their gifts to your scholarship (confirm with State’s folks that they allow this). You can also include the phone number for giving if you want.

You can do the heavy lifting for funding since this is something you really desire but at the same time your friends who like and appreciate you may welcome the chance to help a little.

 

[dorndawg]

Congrats on being well-endowed.***

(Seriously, good on you for paying it forward)

 

[Hot Rock]

Thank You - not only for what you are doing but to what I may do as well. I like the idea.

 

[Hugh's Burner Phone]

Congrats on being well-endowed.***

(Seriously, good on you for paying it forward)

 

[johnson86-1]

I received a couple of scholarships while at State that basically made it possible for me. B/c of that, I've always had the desire to endow a scholarship. I'm now at (or near) that spot. This is for academics and not athletics

To endow a scholarship, have to pledge $25k and they want it paid over 5 years (with some leeway). If not completely funded, the money rolls to the general scholarship fund and is not perpetual.

My question is - has anyone done this and have recs on rules for the scholarship? Things I've said are - specific major, GPA requirement, if it can go to someone from the county I went to HS in it will

Anything else?

A few thoughts:
- Are you more interested in helping a particular type of student? Or just helping the university? I know the university used to would say for the latter they need scholarships that they can offer to freshmen for recruitment. Based on your comment I would assume you are leaning more towards the former? If so, I would just try to articulate what type of student (or maybe more accurately, what type of qualities) you want to reward/encourage/help and then see what rules that would suggest.
- How much are they saying they will do a scholarship for for $25k? I'm assuming that's around $1k a year to distribute if it's going to be perpetual? I would think maybe make it for just one year (so maybe just Senior year?) so it's more significant to the student receiving it? Also would reward students that have progressed with a good GPA.
- Depending on what you are trying to do, maybe provide that students with certain scholarships are excluded from consideration? So you're helping students that need it more rather than topping off funds for students that already have good scholarship money? (Don't know what those scholarships would be now, but they used to would have been Schillig, Presidential, and maybe Eminent Scholars (not that Eminent Scholars was that much but the ones that got that usually had other money to get close to having their tuition paid for).
- My personal preference, but I would avoid an application process that includes an essay or personal statement or whatever if it's going to be a relatively small amount (say less than $2,500k total). I would rather have objective requirements to meet and before I did a personal statement to narrow it down, I'd require something like time donated to whatever cause I think is important, and then draw the name out of a hat for the people that qualified, if necessary.

 

[Crazy Cotton]

Johnson86 makes a good point about "scholarship stacking", where a high performer can rack up a bunch of awards. I doubt you can prohibit that, but you can make the criteria specific enough to target the group you most want to benefit. E.g. you might have a special place in your heart for commuter students, or adult students, children of law enforcement or the military, or students currently serving in the national guard or the like. You already mentioned a particular geographical location - those kinds of criteria, much more than GPA or ACT scores, will help your money go to the people you'd most like to see benefit.

 

[horshack.sixpack]

I received a couple of scholarships while at State that basically made it possible for me. B/c of that, I've always had the desire to endow a scholarship. I'm now at (or near) that spot. This is for academics and not athletics

To endow a scholarship, have to pledge $25k and they want it paid over 5 years (with some leeway). If not completely funded, the money rolls to the general scholarship fund and is not perpetual.

My question is - has anyone done this and have recs on rules for the scholarship? Things I've said are - specific major, GPA requirement, if it can go to someone from the county I went to HS in it will

Anything else?

I did not specify a major beyond being in the Bagley School of Engineering. I structured it to have a more forgiving year 1 GPA because adjusting to 4 year college can be tough. I didn't have a sky high GPA requirement overall because quite honestly I've had better luck with engineers that did not have ridiculously high GPAs. I did require that they had a demonstrated financial need. The Foundation should be able to help you know if you are being so restrictive that it might be hard to find a place to put your money to use and advise you on how to best fund what you want with reasonable parameters. Listen to whomever you are working with at the Foundation and they should be able to help you out a lot.

 

[DawgatAuburn]

You can consider including a financial need component, so for example, restrict it to students who are Pell eligible or who have a certain amount of unmet need. Of course this depends on the Dept of Ed figuring out the new FAFSA sometime in the next decade.

I don't know how it works at State but I'm familiar with the process here. The scholarship office at State might be a good place to start the discussions. I would presume that Development/Advancement would be involved somewhere along the way.

 

[aTotal360]

I would recommend adding the stipulation of knowing the proper cadence to "Maroon White Fight Fight Fight".

 

[stateguy]

thanks for tips
some replies to above

Would be for an MechEng student (a must)
GPA requirement is 3.0 (don't think that's ridiculous and chosen b/c it's what I had to do) - I didn't ask about wording but I think I had some kind of leeway should I have dropped below that
$25k endowment would be $1k a year. I can add to after that to increase scholarship amount by similar rates
Do like the idea of seeing if others can contribute to this endowment specifically - will have to ask
No applications for mine specifically. I'm sure as hell not reading someone's essays or personal statements.
Not super crazy about any volunteer requirement or other special requirements- mainly b/c I didn't have any. Go to school and get decent grades
I do somewhat like the idea of not giving more $ to someone who has other large scholarships. I guess I will ask them about that.

They have been helpful - biggest hold up in actually starting is the personal fear I lose my job and can't fund it in year 5. That being said, I'm pretty much over that and will still likely start funding it in next month or 2.

Thanks again for the tips

 

[ZombieKissinger]

thanks for tips
some replies to above

Would be for an MechEng student (a must)
GPA requirement is 3.0 (don't think that's ridiculous and chosen b/c it's what I had to do) - I didn't ask about wording but I think I had some kind of leeway should I have dropped below that
$25k endowment would be $1k a year. I can add to after that to increase scholarship amount by similar rates
Do like the idea of seeing if others can contribute to this endowment specifically - will have to ask
No applications for mine specifically. I'm sure as hell not reading someone's essays or personal statements.
Not super crazy about any volunteer requirement or other special requirements- mainly b/c I didn't have any. Go to school and get decent grades
I do somewhat like the idea of not giving more $ to someone who has other large scholarships. I guess I will ask them about that.

They have been helpful - biggest hold up in actually starting is the personal fear I lose my job and can't fund it in year 5. That being said, I'm pretty much over that and will still likely start funding it in next month or 2.

Thanks again for the tips

Can I read the personal statements for you?