First Transgender National Scholarship Marks Major Milestone for Equality in Higher Education
Transgender students face disproportionate and significant disadvantages in accessing affordable college education. The TransgenderFirst initiative seeks to change that by building awareness and funding.
LAS VEGAS, June 16, 2020 /PRNewswire-PRWeb/ -- During Gay Pride month and the necessary conversations on equality taking place across the nation, the first national scholarship exclusively for underserved Transgender students has officially launched to enable affordable access to a college education. With many universities already sharing this groundbreaking opportunity to their students via scholarship resources and LGBTQ centers in it's debut month, it's a major milestone for raising awareness of the unique difficulties that transgender students face, and a significant step towards equality.
Transgender students are often never able to access higher education due to disproportionate and substantial challenges. Whether those challenges involve difficulty in getting full-time employment to afford school, losing family and parental support after coming out, or the lack of access to student housing on campus, transgender students are at a disadvantage when it comes to affording a college degree. To further exasperate the situation, very few resources currently exist, whether through grants or scholarships, to help alleviate these financial hardships. The goal of the initiative is to help every transgender student receive $2500 or more to begin to offset these challenges.
The #TransgenderFirst National Scholarship was initiated by the Aldrich family, actively involved in other efforts to make college and higher education more affordable, upon hearing about the personal struggles from a transgender family friend. "After learning about the challenges the Transgender community faces in affording college education, we said to ourselves, 'This isn't right'. We knew something needed to be done."
Support has already begun to pour in as a wide variety of universities have already featured the scholarship on their respective websites, as well as from the greater public on social media. Tweets on Twitter included a range of transgender students and supporters, including "Help support the first national scholarship for transgender students! #TransgenderFirst #Scholarship #LGBTQ #Transgender," and "Help support this hugely important cause #transgenderfirst".
Any students who identify as transgender and who are looking to either attend, or are already attending, a US-based post-secondary institution, are encouraged to apply via the online application on the initiative webpage at http://transgenderscholarship.org/
About #TransgenderFirst National Scholarship
This groundbreaking initiative represents the first national scholarship exclusively dedicated to helping underserved Transgender students get affordable access to higher education. Our goal is to help every transgender student get $2,500 towards college, raise student awareness and bring necessary funding from donors everywhere. Transgender students face disproportionate and significant disadvantages in accessing affordable college education, and we're going to change that. Transgender students who plan to pursue a degree, or currently pursuing a degree, at an accredited U.S. post-secondary institution, are encouraged to apply. Awards are annual and based on eligibility, financial need, personal hardship, academic merit, and other related considerations.
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SOURCE TransgenderFirst
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