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The University of Central Florida will use a new $1.6 million donation to provide scholarships to 46 graduates of Orange County high schools in an ongoing effort to fill gaps in financial aid for students from low-income families.
Many of the students have financial aid that pays their UCF tuition, which is about $6,000 a year, but the new $2,500-a-year scholarships will help offset the costs of housing, books and other items that can be a “barrier” to completing an undergraduate degree, UCF said.
“It might look like a small amount of money, but, for me, that’s major,” said Hellena Kyama, 18, a graduate of Evans High School, who received one of the new scholarships.
Kyama, whose parents are immigrants from Zambia and the Democratic Republic of the Congo, is the first in her family to attend college and said the new scholarship will relieve some financial pressures.
The Frederick A. DeLuca Foundation, a Pompano Beach-based non-profit, donated the money for the scholarships, which will go to graduates of Colonial, Evans, Jones, Oak Ridge and Wekiva high schools, the university said. All those high schools serve large numbers of teenagers from low-income families.
Kyama took part in the UCF Downtown Scholars Initiative, a two-part program that aims to help students from some of those high schools apply to UCF and then succeed during their freshman year on campus. UCF said in coming years the priority for the new scholarships will be students taking part in that program, which already provides free summer tuition and scholarship options.
UCF students who received state financial aid last school year got an average a $1,670 per year award, but more than 5,300 of the university’s students eligible for aid did not get any state funding, according to report from the Florida Department of Education.
A 2021 report by the Florida Senate noted that even students who qualified for federal Pell grants, reserved for those from families with the lowest income, did not always get enough state financial aid to cover all their costs at Florida’s universities.
Maria Vazquez, superintendent of Orange County Public Schools, said the foundation’s donation to support additional scholarships was welcome news.
“Helping to remove any part of the financial burden that can come with a student’s post-secondary dream is a gift that I know each student will be so grateful to receive, and I look forward to seeing that happen for them,” she said in a statement.
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