|
Only have a minute? Listen instead
Getting your Trinity Audio player ready...
|
The Brownsville Public Utilities Board has doubled the amount of scholarships it’s giving to eligible students this year through the utility’s Project SHARE Scholarship program.
The amount of scholarship money has increased from $1,000 per student to $2,000 per student. Ten students will receive the scholarships, which can be used to help them pay for tuition fees or moving expense, or buy books and computers. The deadline to apply is March 8 at 5 p.m.
“BPUB is committed to giving back to the community it serves by supporting students as they move forward in their academic journey,” said the utility.
To qualify for a SHARE Scholarship, an applicant must be a graduating high school student, live in a household with a minimum of one year of utility service and be attending an accredited institution of higher education within the United States. The application process, which is entirely online, is open to all majors.
Along with the application and other requirements, applicants are required to submit a typed 500-600 word essay. Essays not meeting the word count will not be considered, nor will applications that are incomplete or submitted late, or that fail to provide all required documents, according to BPUB.
Once the scholarship recipients have been selected, BPUB will issue checks directly to students.
BPUB spokeswoman Cleiri Quezada said Project SHARE started in 1985 as a way to help low-income families pay their bills, though the fund expanded in 2005 to help students with college expenses through scholarships.
“Since 2005, BPUB has awarded 177 recipients a total of $163,500,” she said. “We have not issued the scholarships for 2024 yet. We will most likely announce the winners around May.”
Most of the money for the scholarship are generated by BPUB’s annual Project SHARE Golf Tournament. Scholarship recipients are from 13 Brownsville-area high schools. Among the top destination schools are the University of Texas-Austin, UT-Rio Grande Valley, Texas State University and Texas A&M University. Recipients’ top five career paths, according to BPUB, are business and finance, education, health care, “arts, entertainment and sports,” and legal.
Last year BPUB awarded 11 scholarships of $1,000 each to graduating high school seniors in the Brownsville area.
To apply for a Project SHARE scholarship go to bpubscholarship.com. Registration must be completed before applications can be submitted. For more information, contact BPUB via email at [email protected].
