Edward I. Koch Scholarships for Public Service
Colin Powell Center
Background and Details
The Koch Scholarship Program will:
- Make it financially feasible for high-achieving students at City College to experience the rewards that can come from performing public service.
- Provide opportunities for these students to work at a variety of nonprofit organization, or a government, community, or educational entity.
- Reward and encourage civic-minded young people by underwriting their City College education for the years they are involved in the program.
- Encourage some of City College’s best students to consider devoting additional time—or even their careers—to public service-oriented work.
- Provide a benefit (in the form of volunteer workers) for educational, non-profit and government-based organizations that cannot afford to pay for interns or service aids.
Eligibility
- Five Koch Scholarship are awarded each year to incoming freshmen. These scholarships are renewable to students who remain eligible to stay in the program. Occasionally, openings become available for upperclassmen when a current Koch scholar leaves the program.
- High-achieving students from the CUNY Honors College, the CCNY Honors Program, the City College Schools of Engineering, Architecture, Sophie Davis School of Biomedical Education, and the College of Liberal Arts are eligible to apply. Applicants must be citizens or permanent residents.
- Students must have and maintain a grade point average of 3.2 or higher.
- Applicants must write an essay describing the reason they wish to perform public service and their past public service experiences.
Purpose
- Public service enhances students' educational experience at CCNY.
- Time spent on the projects, while important, should not detract from a student’s primary focus of his or her studies, but enrich them.
Benefits
- To help students pursue their goal of public service, the Koch Public Service Scholars will receive support equal to $5,000 a year.
- The Koch Scholarships will be used to pay for the educational expenses of the Koch Public Service Scholars while they are attending City College.
- The Koch Public Service Scholars Program will enhance the retention and graduation rate of some of CCNY’s most promising students by meeting their tuition and other expenses, allowing them to concentrate on their studies and spend time outside of class at meaningful public service work.
- Students will be assigned to a faculty adviser while they are Koch Scholars. They will meet regularly with these advisers both individually and as a group. The adviser will help his or her students
- become oriented to their new working culture
- balance their public service work with class work
- address other concerns and questions that may arise during the course of the year.
How to apply
Applications are now available. The deadline to apply is Thursday, December 1, at 4 p.m. Download the application
For questions, please contact Colin Dixon, cdixon@ccny.cuny.edu; 212-650-8446
