Scholarship Fund Established for Undergraduate Students Re-Entering Higher Education

The Bernard Osher Foundation has established a $50,000 scholarship fund for former undergraduate students re-enrolling at Colorado State University.

Starting next school year, Colorado State will be awarding 11 to 12 scholarships in the $4,000 range to re-entry students to help them pursue bachelor’s degrees. Applicants for the Osher Re-entry Scholarship must be between the ages of 25 and 50 with a cumulative gap in their education of five or more years.  

Students need not have attended Colorado State in the past but must be entering the university to complete their degrees. Other re-entry scholarship requirements include a minimum grade-point average of 2.75 for all college or university credits already taken as well as a minimum 60 credits earned from previous

coursework toward a selected major.

"It is exciting to be able to support adults who have not given up on investing in their economic future," said Jan Rastall, coordinator of the Osher Re-entry Scholarship program. "Thanks to the Osher Foundation, we now have funds to award scholarships to people who have already made significant progress toward their bachelor’s, yet had to delay graduating due to life circumstances."     

For more information about the Osher Re-entry Scholarship, visit www.natsci.colostate.edu/Osher/index.cfm or call Jan Rastall at (970) 491-0415. The priority deadline for the first round of consideration is May 31, 2008.

This is the second donation made by the Bernard Osher Foundation to Colorado State. In July 2006, the foundation gave the Division of Continuing Education the first of a series of annual grants of $100,000. Their goal was to help support a lifelong learning center for people over the age of 50.

Since the establishment of the Osher Lifelong Learning Institute, more than 200 members have participated in more than 40 short courses. The classes include subjects such as natural science, history, current events, sustainability and arts and culture. For more information about the Institute, call 970-491-5288 or visit www.learn.colostate.edu/northerncolorado/osher/.

Headquartered in San Francisco, the Bernard Osher Foundation was established in 1977 by Bernard Osher, who is a founding director of World Savings, the second largest savings institution in the United States.

The foundation seeks to improve quality of life through support for higher education and the arts. It provides post-secondary scholarship funding to colleges and universities across the nation, with special attention to re-entry students.

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