The growing expense of a college education is a major
concern to all of us. Last year this topic arose during the Chapter's
debate on how to support the Greek Language Schools of St. Sophia and
St. George, and led to the Chapter's decision to help parents and their
children by expanding the Chapter's Ahepa scholarship programs.
This concern extends even to the most affluent communities.
Nationally, internet web sites, such as www.fastweb.com
, www.collegeaidaward.com
or www.findtuition.com have
sprouted quickly to focus generally on available scholarships. More
specific sites have also been created for ethnic communities such as
the Hispanic web sites, the African-American web sites, and Asian-American
web sites. So, too, many church oriented web sites have been established
to help parents and students pay for their college educations.
The Greek American community is no exception. However,
while quite a number of individual scholarships are available to students
in our community, we could find no one source that provided a satisfactory
overview and compendium of information that would be useful to this
community. For example, in its web site: www.goarch.org
, the Greek Orthodox Archdiocese features a number of scholarships intended
for students of the Orthodox faith but, justifiably, makes no effort
to be comprehensive. Likewise the Ahepa website: www.Ahepa.org
does the same for scholarships available through the Ahepa at the national
level or offered through the Districts or through Chapters. Try as we
might, we could find no website sufficiently comprehensive to be a one
stop "shopping Center" to satisfy Greek American students
and their parents.
We concluded that Chapter 31, through its website, as
well as through its newsletter, could offer a "clearinghouse"
of information relating to sources of scholarship aid. Scholarships
available to Greek American students, as well as tips and suggestions
on how to apply.
Additional information could be featured, such as the
new Federal Law, PL110-84, based on a bill introduced by Congressman
John Sarbanes which "forgives" college tuition charges in
exchange for commitments to serve a specific term with the Federal Government
or perform other public service under IRS 501(c)(3).
If there is sufficient interest, we could enlarge and
expand both the Chapter31 Newsletter and the web site to encourage readers
to submit or post new information. We could provide…. much like
the Wikipedia… the uploading, amendment or correction of information
appearing on the site.
Your comments and suggestions are welcomed; and would
be very much appreciated.
