Scholarship Opportunities Available

The Financial Aid Office has announced several scholarship opportunities that are available.

The Sallie Mae Fund is offering a variety of scholarships to low-income and minority students for the 2005-2006 academic year. Scholarship criteria, applications and deadlines for 2005 are now available for download from the Sallie Mae Fund’s Web site at http://www.salliemaefund.org.

The National Institutes of Health (NIH) has scholarships available. The NIH offers up to $20,000 a year in scholarship support, paid research training at the NIH during the summer and after graduation, and intensive mentoring, research experience, career guidance and skill development. Basic requirements include: U.S. citizen, national or qualified non-citizen and be enrolled or accepted for enrollment as a full-time student for the 2005-2006 academic year at an accredited undergraduate institution. Additional requirements are that the student must be from a disadvantaged background, which means that their financial aid office has certified them as having exceptional financial aid need, and they must have a 3.5 GPA or higher or be within the top five percent of their class. For more information and to apply for the scholarship, go to http://ugsp.info.nih.gov. Deadline for applications is Feb. 28.

The Federated Garden Clubs of Missouri offer scholarships up to $1,000 to qualifying junior, senior or graduate students enrolled in a Missouri college or university who are majoring in horticulture, floriculture, landscape design, botany, plant pathology, forestry, agronomy, environmental concerns, city planning, land management or allied subject.

Scholarships up to $3,000 are also available through the Ernest and Lillian Swanson, the Tex Neuner and the Ida Morrow Scholarship Trust Funds to qualifying freshman, sophomore, junior, senior or graduate students who are Missouri residents and are enrolled in any accredited college or university. The student must be studying botany, plant genetics or related subject.

Another scholarship offered by the Federated Garden Clubs of Missouri is the Virginia Thomas Scholarship, which is available to a foreign student studying horticulture or related field at a Missouri college or university who is planning to return to his or her own country after graduation. This student must be a junior, senior or graduate student who is recommended by the college or university. Visit the Truman State University Financial Aid Office for an application for any of the Federated Garden Clubs of Missouri scholarships. Deadline for scholarship submission is March 1.