Since beginning her studies at Pasadena City College in southern California in 2006, each term has been a financial challenge for Nelli Pogosyan, and this semester is no exception. But now, thousands like Pogosyan catch a small break thanks to a statewide endowment specifically supporting community college-goers.
Known as Osher Scholars, the neediest students at the 112 community colleges in the nation’s most populous state are receiving scholarships worth up to $1,000 for textbooks, lab fees and other instructional supplies. Pogosyan used part of her $375 award for software required for a computer technology course.
Osher Scholars are selected by each institution from among low- and fixed-income students who already receive tuition waivers based on their financial aid applications.
“The Osher money helped me keep up with classwork rather than fall behind,” says Pogosyan, a single mother who works part-time and whose son is in college, too. “I couldn’t find used books at the store so I bought them new rather than struggle to buy used ones online and wait for the mail.”
Her scholarship springs from the $67.7 million California Community Colleges Scholarship Endowment created in part from a $25 million lead gift in 2008 by the Bernard Osher Foundation. Since then, the Foundation for California Community Colleges has led and completed a three-year fundraising campaign that ended last June, netting the remaining endowment monies. Specifically, for every $2 raised by a two-year college in the state, the Osher Foundation matched it with an additional $1 gift.
Kerry Wood, vice president of resource development and communications for the Foundation for California Community Colleges, notes that benefactor Bernard Osher could have easily made his one-time gift of $25 million and moved on.
“Instead, he challenged the community colleges to raise additional funds for which he would match by 50 percent,” Wood says. “This act alone served as an intended message to other (donors) to consider the community colleges as a viable and worthwhile beneficiary of their funds.”
