Our Mission

Mission Statement:

The Jack Kent Cooke Foundation’s mission is to help students of exceptional promise reach their full potential through education.

Throughout the United States, millions of lower-income, exceptionally promising students are not challenged at school. As a result, every year, too many high-achieving students lose ground educationally, and an even greater number of promising under-resourced students fail to attain advanced levels of academic achievement.  

The Foundation works to reverse this situation by expanding educational opportunities through scholarship programs designed to support high-achieving, lower-income students in high school, college, and graduate school. Jack Kent Cooke Scholars benefit from generous funding for their education, guidance from a dedicated staff of advisers, mentoring from accomplished professionals and civic leaders, and participation in a community of equally remarkable students.

The Foundation also supports and partners with outstanding education providers--including higher-education institutions--that offer the highest levels of academic rigor to lower-income students. Some of our grantees develop or target excellent educational opportunities specifically for high-achieving students.  Others set the stage for high-achievers to emerge from larger groups of under-served students by offering demanding educational opportunities to broader populations. A few grantees focus on students who demonstrate extraordinary talent in the performing and fine arts.  

Together, the Foundation and its partners work to increase opportunities for America’s most academically promising students, ensuring that a lack of financial resources does not deter their success at the highest levels.  By seeking talent where it is sometimes overlooked or unsupported, each year the Foundation helps prepare hundreds of exceptionally promising individuals to emerge as leaders in all academic and professional disciplines.