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All of Mother’s Day was spent at a hospital with my 92-year-old mother. But a part of the day was spent with another mother who happened to be a nurse, singing praises to Missouri’s A+ program and the opportunity it was giving her son about to graduate from high school. She was one happy mom!
It wasn’t but a few years ago that hardly anyone knew much about A+ and countless opportunities were lost simply because local school officials and parents were ignorant. The success of this program is now widely known and available at many institutions of higher education in Missouri.
This comes to mind as I consider Scholar-Link, a promising program offering financial help to families confronting college decisions. Too few people understand the help Scholar-Link offers to households in 16 counties in Northwest Missouri.
Scholar-Link is provided through the Community Foundation of Northwest Missouri. The idea is to centralize scholarships so that high school students can more easily identify regional scholarships which they may be eligible to receive. It’s an online tool that eases the burden of filling out multiple applications.
There is no cost to students, parents or schools. The website is easy to use. You can browse scholarships, follow an easy step-by-step application process, and quickly submit a form to prequalify for scholarships administered through the Foundation.
At first the program only involved a few school districts in St. Joseph and King City. Since then, you’d think word would spread like wildfire. But it hasn’t. Results tabulated for the Class of 2019 show that only 7 applications were submitted from Daviess County students out of the total 354 applications submitted. Maysville had no applicants; about 20 high schools only had one applicant.
Sponsors advocating Scholar-Link, as shown on the foundation’s website (cfnwmo.org) include UMKC, NCMC, Northwest Mo. State and Missouri Western with support from Nodaway Valley Bank, Commerce Bank and Hillyard, Inc.
Scholarship deadlines vary throughout the school year. But keeping track of deadlines and other pertinent information about the availability of scholarships for college can be a snap once you are a registered scholarship applicant.
It’s never too early for parents to start doing their homework on financing college plans. Hopefully, more hopefuls in the Class of 2020 will utilize Scholar-Link in identifying opportunities. It’s a great new tool.