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Update on Big Ten 9-11 Scholarship Fund
Sept. 9, 2011 Following the national tragedy on Sept. 11, 2001, the Big Ten Conference committed $1 million to the Big Ten 9-11 Scholarship Fund as part of the Families of Freedom Scholarship Fund. The fund, which provides need-based scholarships to dependents of 9-11 family members and rescue workers, will award more than $11 million in postsecondary scholarships to 641 members of the 9-11 community for the 2011-12 academic year. This week, Big Ten Commissioner James E. Delany was a special guest at an evening of remembrance, organized by the Families of Freedom Scholarship Fund, in New York City. Led by Delany, the Big Ten Conference has awarded approximately $340,000 in scholarships over the last 10 years to the Big Ten 9-11 Scholarship Fund which provides funding for eligible beneficiaries attending Big Ten Conference member institutions. Scholarships are available for undergraduate and graduate study, and will be available to children and adolescents through 2030. The Big Ten is one of 34 service organizations or individuals to have pledged $1 million or more to the organization. Established within a week following 9-11, the Families of Freedom Scholarship Fund helped raise more than $100 million from thousands of organizations and individuals. A program of Scholarship America, the nation's largest non-profit, private sector scholarship and educational support organization, the fund provides education assistance for postsecondary study to financially needy dependents of those people killed or permanently disabled as a result of the terrorist attacks on Sept. 11, 2001. By the end of this academic year, the Families of Freedom Scholarship Fund will have awarded approximately $74 million in scholarships to nearly 1,900 students during the program's 10 years. About Scholarship America: Scholarship America is a national education service organization that mobilizes support for students getting into and graduating from college. Scholarship America has distributed more than $2.5 billion in scholarship assistance to more than 1.7 million students over the last 50 years. Scholarship America's programs, which include Dollars for Scholars®, help fund both entry-level and multi-year scholarships, as well as emergency financial grants. More information is available at scholarshipamerica.org. About the Big Ten Conference: The Big Ten Conference is an association of world-class universities whose member institutions share a common mission of research, graduate, professional and undergraduate teaching and public service. Founded in 1896, the Big Ten has sustained a comprehensive set of shared practices and policies that enforce the priority of academics in student-athletes' lives and emphasize the values of integrity, fairness and competitiveness. The broad-based athletic programs of the 12 Big Ten institutions sponsor 298 teams competing for championships in 25 official conference sports, 12 for men and 13 for women. Big Ten universities provide in excess of $120 million in athletic scholarship aid to more than 9,500 men and women student-athletes. For more information, visit www.bigten.org. |
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