Cape Fear Community College Foundation, Inc.
The Importance of Scholarships
While our students work hard, the main barrier to furthering and completing their education is financial. For them, financial assistance means going from two jobs to one or making a decision between whether to pay for child care or to go to school at all. Many of the students who benefit from scholarships come from right here in Southeastern North Carolina. A large number of them remain in our area after graduation. We would like your help in providing scholarships to more of these deserving students, whose education and training strengthen our community.
Annual and Endowed Scholarships
Scholarships are established with your gifts. Some scholarships are endowed. With those scholarships, students receive the interest on an invested principle that will work for students in perpetuity. (See the list of all scholarships.) Many scholarships are not endowed. These represent donor gifts in almost any amount. Whatever the size, the entire amount of the scholarship is provided to students in a manner essentially provided by donors. We call these "pass-through" scholarships because all the funds are dispersed.
How scholarships are dispersed and what students are qualified to get them depends on donors in conjunction with Foundation staff. For example, some donors interested in nursing might limit scholarships to nursing students. Others might limit scholarships by grade point average or even some other criteria. The college Financial Aid Office administers the award of scholarships to CFCC students. Please see the Financial Aid page on our web site, if you are a student interested in a scholarship.
Providing an Endowed Scholarship
Many generous donors, probably your neighbors and friends, have provided an endowment to assist students with scholarship help. Endowed scholarships are permanent, named funds. These funds are invested and only a portion of the income generated is used for annual scholarships. The principal remains untouched and can even grow. Endowed scholarships are a meaningful way to honor or memorialize a family member or friend.
An endowed scholarship can be established with as little as $10,000.00. Donors may add to their endowment at any time. Currently, we use a 4% spending rate for endowments to ensure that the corpus will always remain intact. Only interest from the endowment is used. Therefore the endowment is a permanent source of scholarship funding that will honor you and help students well into the future.
If you would like more information about scholarships, please contact Margaret Robison, Executive Director of the Cape Fear Community College Foundation at 910-362-7101.
