The Jack Kent Cooke Foundation has announced that 49 gifted students from low-income houses will be the recipients of scholarships to help them either attend or complete their studies at college cross the world.
According to the foundation, the scholarships will provide up to $50,000 per year for up to six years to for "high-achieving, low-income students," many of which who also benefited from the foundation’s Undergraduate Transfer and College Scholarship programs.
Among the many recipients of the scholarships are Jarrad Aguirre, a former figure skater and 2009 Rhodes Scholar who plans to complete a degree in medical anthology, medicine, and public health after watching her mother survive breast cancer and a friend succumb to AIDS.
Lalita Booth, another recipient, is a once-homeless single mother who founded a nonprofit organization that teaches financial literary to low-income learners, foster teens, and high school students while in college and is pursuing both an MBA and MPA at Harvard University.
"These students represent a generation of new leaders. At a time when getting advanced degrees is so critical to professional success, the Jack Kent Cooke Foundation is committed to helping exceptional students like these pursue their dreams so they can make a difference in the world," said Dr. Lawrence Kutner, the foundation’s executive director.
A profile of the 49 scholarship recipients found that 15 were international students who hailed from Afghanistan, China, Vietnam, Nepal, Myanmar, India, Russia, Ecuador, and Nigeria. The recipients will attend many prestigious graduate and professional schools including Harvard University, University of California, Los Angeles, New York University, Brown University, University of Oxford, and the London School of Economics and Political Science.
According to its website, he Jack Kent Cooke Foundation is a private foundation that focuses on helping children with great talent to live up to their potential through its Young Scholars program.