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LITTLE ROCK, Ark. — The University of Arkansas at Little Rock announced a $7.5 million donation that will create need-based scholarships for generations of future students.
“It creates opportunities for more Arkansans to take that first step and to do what I did,” said Student Government Association (SGA) President, An Le.
While Le addressed the crowd of hundreds who gathered to hear the announcement Friday, it was Chancellor Christina Drale who got to break the news to the eager crowd.
“The Windgate Foundation has awarded us $7.5 million to help us launch the Enduring Opportunity Scholarship Fund,” Drale said.
Around $5 million will go into an endowment that will create more and more scholarships as time goes by.
“What it does is, over time, it grows,” Drale said, “And it also continuously produces income that you can use for the needs that you have.”
The other $2.5 million will be used for need-based scholarships in the short-term as the endowment grows.
That’s welcome news for students like Le, who said without opportunities like these, she may have never been SGA President or even attended UA-Little Rock at all.
“I’m a first-generation college student,” Le said. “And due to scholarships like this here at UA-Little Rock, I was able to pursue a bachelor’s degree and graduate soon as well. And that just opened so many doors for me.”
This endowment and the scholarships it will create join affordability programs currently in place like the Trojan Guarantee and the school’s Half-Off Scholarship.
Drale said it’s all about making sure no one is left behind.
“We are all about addressing the barriers that students may have to getting an education in the first place,” Drale said. “And affordability is really a national issue … we just believe that we should try to break down those barriers as much as possible so that we can celebrate equal opportunity for all Arkansans.
The Windgate Foundation, who made the donation, also challenged the UA-Little Rock community to raise another $1.5 million for the endowment.
Chancellor Drale announced Friday that she would kick that process off by making the very first donation of $25,000.
