Jack Kent Cooke Foundation Announces 2009 Undergraduate Transfer Scholarships

June 25, 2009

Media Contact: Emily Froimson

Jack Kent Cooke Foundation

44325 Woodridge Parkway

Lansdowne, VA 20176

(703) 723-8000

 

 

 

Lansdowne VA – The Jack Kent Cooke Foundation has awarded scholarships to 30 of the nation’s best community college students so they can transfer to four-year colleges and universities and complete their bachelor’s degree. The Foundation’s Undergraduate Transfer Scholarship Program, the most generous and competitive program of its kind, provides up to $30,000 a year for up to three years to exceptional community college students. This year, 30 students were selected from a pool of over 450 applicants.

 

In the fall, the Scholars will attend some of the best public and private colleges and universities in the nation, including Columbia University, Cornell University, Georgetown University, Smith College, Emory University, Johns Hopkins University, University of California, Berkeley, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and Washington University-St. Louis.  

 

Although earning a bachelor’s degree is more important than ever to economic success, many of the six million students who attend two-year community colleges face difficulty reaching that goal. The Undergraduate Transfer Scholarship program gives a much-needed financial boost to promising students who need help to complete their college education. 

 

Many four-year institutions, including some of the most elite universities in the nation, do not admit transfer students or make it very difficult for transfer students to attend their schools. For example, Princeton University has a longstanding policy against admitting any transfer students and, last year, Harvard University instituted a moratorium on accepting transfer students. Giving high-achievers the opportunity to get a bachelor’s degree, including those in the community college pipeline, is an important goal for the United States, which once led the world in postsecondary education completion rates, and today ranks 10^th.

 

“These students represent the best of the best,” says Matthew Quinn, the Foundation’s executive director. “These are some of the most determined high achieving students. They deserve the chance to pursue their academic dream.”   

 

This year’s scholarship recipients hail from 17 states and the District of Columbia and 14 foreign countries including Peru, Costa Rica, China, Cameroon, Bulgeria, Russia, Mexico and Cuba.  They range in age from 20 to 51 and include a single, working mother, the first person in her family to go to college, a child of migrant workers, a future doctor from Cameroon, and a high-school dropout who wants to be an engineer.

 

Among the notable 2009 Undergraduate Transfer Scholarship Recipients:

 

·        Richael Young, the first member of her family to attend college, states “I made a conscious decision to take advantage of every opportunity that presented itself to me.” And so she will this fall. The 20-year old plans to earn an environmental engineering degree from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.  

·        Callistus Ditah, a Minnesotan who arrived from a tiny village in Cameroon only three years ago, the 23-year old hopes to become a doctor. Ditah, who will attend the University of Minnesota, is already giving back. He donates a portion of what he earns to a scholarship program he created to students back home.

·        Victoria White, a former legal assistant in Atlanta, Georgia, will study English and public policy at Emory University. She aspires to be a writer for an economic think tank. 

 

The scholarship is intended to cover a significant share of the student’s educational expenses, including tuition, living expenses, books and required fees for the final two-to-three years needed to achieve a bachelor’s degree. Awards vary by individuals and are based on the cost of tuition as well as other grants or scholarships that a student may have. Since the program began in 2002, the Foundation has awarded more than 300 scholarships.

 

Alessandro Bailetti, Pensacola, Florida

Benjamin Bingham, Seffner, Florida

Jose Carvajal-Regidor, Lawrence, Kansas

Lydia Chan, Yonkers, New York

Anahi Cortada, Hialeah, Florida

Janice DeJordy, Scotia, New York

Callistus Ditah, Bloomington, Minnesota

Yiqing Dong, Naperville, Illinois

Jacob Ferina, Madison, Wisconsin

Iolanda Ferrara, Randolph, Massachusetts

Charlene Gomez, Alhambra, California

Derval Hamilton, Hickory, North Carolina

Kelly Hargesheimer, Oklahoma City, Oklahoma

Karina Hermawan, Monterey Park, California

Veselina Hristova, Nevada, Missouri

Fawn Leipold, Parkville, Maryland

Julio Maldonado-Garcia, San Francisco, California

Shamil Mirzoev, Rochester, Minnesota

Promise Olomo, Forestville, Maryland

Sally Rodriguez, Winter Springs, Florida

Edward Sawyer, Arlington, Virginia

Monirath Siv, Long Beach, California

Neida Soto, Smyrna, Georgia

Xiwen Wang, West Covina, California

Brian Watson, Moss Point, Mississippi

Victoria White, Atlanta Georgia

John Windham, Tucson, Arizona

Camiliana Wood, Longview, Washington

Richael Young, Foster City, California

Kiro Yovkov, St. Louis, Missouri