Scholarships and Grants
Scholarships and Grants Make A Difference
Gifts from alumni, employees, committed citizens, corporations and foundations help many students lacking financial resources to achieve their educational and career goals.
Help Deserving Students
Community colleges have long provided a gateway to higher education, but that gateway has become more difficult to access. Costs to attend community college have doubled since 2006, and as with other community colleges throughout California, the students who attend the Peralta Colleges tend to be low-income, with at least 50 percent qualifying for financial assistance.
141 Scholarships awarded in 2010-2011
In 2010-11, the Peralta Colleges Foundation awarded 141 scholarships
totaling $85,000.
With roughly half of the District's students qualifying for financial assistance, there is room to grow our scholarship fund. A student who enrolls in a community college in fall 2011 will pay an estimated $1,300 per semester for fees, books and supplies. Here are examples of committed individuals who established scholarship funds.
Richard Lewis McHugh Memorial Scholarship Award
Richard Lewis McHugh Memorial Scholarship Award honors the memory of a Vietnam veteran who attended College of Alameda. While in the Navy, Rick served on the USS Hornet, now a museum on Alameda, and performed avionics maintenance on helicopters and airplanes. After leaving the navy, Rick returned to the San Francisco Bay Area, where he grew up. After a devastating house fire that nearly took his life, Rick spent the rest of his life recovering from the effects of that disaster. Before becoming too ill to attend classes, Rick took creative writing and art classes at the College of Alameda that gave him hope and encouragement and for which his family remains grateful.
Carter Gilmore Scholarship Fund
The Carter Gilmore Scholarship Fund honors the legacy of Carter Gilmore, a prominent and longtime community activist and businessman who died of cancer in 2006. Mr. Carter moved to Oakland in 1951 and worked for Granny Goose Foods for decades, retiring as a plant manager. He served as president of the NAACP's Alameda branch and later its Northern California division. The first African American elected to the Oakland City Council, Mr. Carter served from 1977 to 1990, and played a key role in creating the city's anti-blight ordinance, organizing the citizen police review board and encouraging businesses to open branches in Oakland.
Burkhart-Brosius Fund
The Burkhart-Brosius Fund was established in honor of Marion Bifford, who as a single working mother, raised four children. She believed in the power of education and instilled a strong work ethic and sense of personal responsibility in her children, all of whom attended or graduated from college. The two recipients of this scholarship received awards to fund the fees, books, and supplies for their two-year Associate's in Nursing and Radiology Technology degree program at Merritt College.
Please call Jimi Browne if you have questions about any of our scholarships: 510.466.7206 or email at .
