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On September 23, Scholarship America will once again be presenting the Irving Innovation Awards, honoring organizations that have reimagined what it means to support students, providing financial assistance and creating holistic opportunities for personal and professional growth.
These awards reflect the vision of organization founder Dr. Irving Fradkin, whose pioneering work in establishing community-based scholarships has grown into a nationwide movement—and made Scholarship America the nation’s largest administrator of scholarships, with $6 billion distributed to students since our founding.
As we lead up to the Irving Innovation Awards gala in Washington, DC, we’re proud to spotlight the award winners here. Today, we’re spotlighting the Dallas College Pathway Success Award Program. Uniquely, this scholarship provides support to those who have completed their education at Dallas College and aim to work toward a four-year degree within the region; the program awards up to $1,000 per semester to qualifying students transferring to any of seven partner universities in North Texas.
To learn more, we sat down with Shanese Alexander, Senior Director, Strategic Initiatives and Operations at Dallas College Foundation. Shanese works closely with the college’s Transfer Success and Guided Pathway teams to connect students with this valuable support.
At Dallas College Foundation, we envision a future where anyone can gain the knowledge and skills they need to advance economically and achieve their dreams. Ensuring that students from every walk of life have access to the full support they need to enroll, persist, and complete a life-changing credential is an essential part of our mission. This includes offering scholarships and awards for students at every point in their educational journey, whether they are enrolling in college for the first time, seeking to complete a credential after a break from education, or transferring to another higher education institution.
Pathway Success funds can help students not just with tuition, but with living expenses, emergencies, or other costs associated with being a student. Dallas College offers an extraordinary level of student support, including emergency aid, childcare, open-access food pantries, and more. The Pathway Success Award allows us to extend that support after students transfer, ensuring they continue to receive the support they need as they continue their education.
Because all recipients of the Pathway Success Award are, by nature, leaving Dallas College, we needed a trusted third party that could work across all eight participating institutions to administer the program. Scholarship America was the perfect partner to ensure our students had support that could follow them from Dallas College to their next educational home, while maintaining a simple, streamlined application process no matter which institution they chose as the next step in their journey.
Beyond the immediate benefit of increased financial resilience for recipients, the Pathway Success Award Program is making transfer more accessible. Transfer can be daunting for many of our students, especially those with financial challenges or who are the first in their family to attend college. Programs like the Pathway Success Award help students see transfer as attainable for the first time – it opens their eyes to the broader abundance of support they can access. Seeing that your community is committed to supporting you as you pursue your dreams has a huge impact on making those dreams feel within your reach.
The Pathway Success Award is just one part of our broader effort to build a stronger regional approach to transfers. Three of our partner universities also offer dedicated success coaches for Dallas College transfer students who provide tailored coaching and advising specific to their needs, and we hope to see this type of collaboration expand across more partners in the coming years. This award is an important step in building stronger partnerships between our institutions that center student experience, resilience, and success, and increase opportunity throughout our region.
Apply! We have seen many qualified applicants hesitate to apply because they don’t feel they meet every preferred qualification perfectly. We want as many students as possible to enjoy the benefits of this added layer of financial support as they pursue further education. Don’t let finances stand in the way of your future!
Our thanks to Shanese and the team at Dallas College Foundation for their time, and congratulations on the award! To learn more about the Irving Innovation Awards and find out how you can be a part of the celebration, visit the event website here.
Our team is here to help you achieve your goals and build your custom scholarship program.