Some Important Foundation Scholarships

There are many rich people in the world who voluntarily share their wealth with the needy for their education. Such people contribute a sizable portion of their income to foundations, which sponsor scholarships. Such foundation scholarships go a long way in helping meritorious but financially needy students to realize their career goals through completing their education.

Many such foundations have come up that provide educational scholarships to meritorious students. Some of these foundations and the scholarships that they provide are described briefly below.

The Jackie Robinson Foundation (JRF): It was established in 1973 by Rachel Robinson, the wife of Jackie Robinson, after the latter's death in 1972. Jackie Robinson was the most outstanding baseball player of his era and an athlete par excellence. Many US corporates sponsor the foundation and fund it.

The JRF foundation scholarships are available to high school seniors for providing financial assistance to them in completing a four-year college degree. Students must be US citizens from a minority community. Further, they must have shown evidence of high academic achievement and financial need. Lastly they must have demonstrated leadership potential and must show interest in their communities.

The Rotary Foundation: The foundation sponsors Ambassadorial Scholarships since 1947. These scholarships are available to students irrespective of their country of origin.

The program offers many types of scholarships for graduate and undergraduate students and also for those qualified professionals who pursue vocational studies. While pursuing studies abroad, scholars serve as goodwill ambassadors to the host country and give presentations about their homelands to Rotary clubs and other groups.

It is the largest privately funded international scholarships program in the world.

Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation: This foundation was established in 2000 by Microsoft founder Bill Gates and his wife Melinda Gates. The foundation offers scholarships for attending college to meritorious students who are financially needy. Their details are provided below.

D.C. Achievers Scholarship: The program offers about 2,250 college scholarships to selected students in six Washington D.C. high schools. It was established in March 2007. The scholarships are available to students of low-income areas defined as Ward 7 or 8. It is available to those students who study in one of six local Washington high schools.

This is a specific program sponsored through use of public-private partnership. It has been conceived with the goal of boosting the number of students who will pass out of school and then complete college graduation. Currently, the figure in respect of Washington's high schools stands at less than 50%.

Besides this scholarship, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation offers two other scholarships. These are the Gates Cambridge Scholarship and the Gates Millennium Scholarship.

Credit is due to all the organizations that provide foundation scholarships. It not only helps the cause of education of needy and meritorious students, but it also provides great satisfaction to the proponents of such foundations.