More STEM scholarship dollars in Washington state

Microsoft and Steve Ballmer, its former CEO, donated 21 million dollars to fund the Washington State Opportunity Scholarship last month! We have had a difficult time filling job openings in the tech sector here in Washington state, and this, plus the 20 million dollars donated by Gary Rubens back in the spring, will go a long way toward helping train students for those jobs.

The WSOS scholarship program has almost all the funding it needs to reach its goal of being able to send 13,000 students to college over a period of 10 years. It is even looking at increasing the number of scholarships offered each year to reach the 13,000 student goal earlier, by 2021. To date, it has awarded about 5,500 scholarships to students planning to major in science, technology, engineering, math, and health care.

The best news is that home-schoolers are eligible to apply for this scholarship (as long as they have registered their intent to home-school)! If you have a child who is a high school senior, college freshman, or sophomore in or interested in a STEM major, watch for the 2016-2017 application to go up on the Washington State Opportunity Scholarship website on January 4, 2016. Other eligibility requirements include that they must be a Washington state resident, have earned a high school diploma or GED by June 2016, be working toward a four-year degree at an eligible Washington state college or university as a full time student in the fall of 2015. Although community college students planning to transfer into a university degree program can apply, please note that Running Start students in dual enrollment can't take advantage of this scholarship, because Running Start is already subsidized by the state Department of Education.

There is also a family income requirement. While your family's income can't exceed the incomes listed on the WSOS chart, they are based on family size. This is great news, especially for the typically larger sizes that home-school families come in.

If you're looking for more scholarships to add to your child's college scholarship basket, check out Getting the BIG Scholarships (Online Training) for secrets on getting huge, merit-based scholarships.

Source: More STEM scholarship dollars in Washington state