Education Grant applications now available
GRAND RAPIDS, Minn. – Itasca area students looking to fund education after high school are encouraged to apply for a Blandin Foundation Education Grant. Blandin Foundation trustees have set aside $975,000 for these grants for the 2019-20 school year
The grants provide $1,000 to $4,500 per student. Applications are now available, and are accepted through March 1, 2019. Students must reapply each year.
These need-based grants are available to local students who will graduate, or have graduated, from these schools: Grand Rapids, Bigfork, Deer River, Hill City, Greenway, Nashwauk-Keewatin, Remer, Blackduck, Northome, Bug-O-Nay-Ge-Shig, Northern Lights Community School, and home-schooled students who would have attended any of these schools.
To be eligible, students must be under age 25 as of September 1, 2019, and be registered as a full-time student (12 credits per semester) at any accredited school in the United States. This can include certificate programs, community, technical and tribal colleges, as well as four-year colleges and universities. (Graduate and doctoral students are not eligible.) Students must make satisfactory academic progress toward their degree program, meaning they maintain at least a 2.0 GPA or higher.
Blandin Foundation selects Education Grant recipients with the greatest unmet financial need as calculated by the Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA). The Foundation also considers other factors, such as total cost of attendance (tuition, fees, room and board, books and supplies, transportation and miscellaneous expenses), family income, and number of siblings also attending college.
“Our Education Grant program has a strong and important history with Itasca area communities,” said Kathy Annette, president of the Blandin Foundation. “For 62 years we have worked with area students to help achieve their dreams of further education. Achievement of our young people was a great passion of Mr. Blandin’s, as it is for the Foundation still today.”
The Education Grant program is the longest-running program of the Blandin Foundation, with the first awards given in 1956 by founder Charles K. Blandin. Education Grants are one way the Foundation supports local lifelong learning – one of nine key dimensions of a healthy community.
Applications are available three ways. Students can pick them up at local high school counseling offices. They can be downloaded from the Foundation’s web site (https://blandinfoundation.org/educationgrants). Or they can be requested from the Foundation directly by calling 218-326-0523 or email to educationgrants@BlandinFoundation.org. Deadline to submit an application is March 1, 2019.
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