Scholarships available for working adults

STATE —  Next Step Maine, a project of the Maine Employers Initiative (MEI), is offering thousands of dollars in scholarships to help working adults and other non-traditional students in Maine further their education.

"We're very excited," said Carol Taylor, interim program director of the Maine Development Foundation, who explained the scholarship program, "Employees of Promise," on behalf of MDF. 

MDF is a private, non-profit organization based in Augusta that works to drive sustainable, long-term economic growth in the state.

The goal of the Next Step Maine campaign is to help Mainers explore their education and achieve a higher quality of life, Taylor said. 

According to Taylor, of the 1.3 million people living in Maine, there are roughly 220,000 people who began college but did not receive their degree. 

"Really what we want to do is enable those people to ... go back to school to obtain their degree," she said. 

"As part of that program, the natural progression is to offer that scholarship, so we are not only offering resources to students ... but we are also providing tools that can help them step fully into their education." 

She urges those who are interested to visit www.nextstepmaine. org, where more than 600 programs from various Maine institutions are listed that are ideal for adult students. 

Scholarships are awarded to working undergrads who are currently pursuing an associate's, bachelor's or industry certification and are ambitious about taking their education to the next level, Taylor said. Applicants must also be considered valuable to the company for which they work, she said. 

Applications will be accepted until March 22. In total, there are eleven $1,000 scholarship awards and six $2,500 scholarship awards available. 

According to Taylor, the goal of the scholarship fund is to support and recognize working adults who are juggling going to school, taking care of their families and balancing other life priorities. 

MEI is a group of approximately 160 Maine employers "who understand the key to having a robust workplace is well-trained employees," Taylor explained.

According to Taylor, students must be employed by an MEI employer to be eligible for the scholarship.

If a company would like to nominate an employee for a scholarship they can also join MEI for free by visiting www.mdf.org, she said.

"It's super easy and takes less than 15 minutes," Taylor said. 

The Next Step website also provides information about Maine's high wage in-demand jobs, what education is needed to obtain those jobs, as well as information about how to pay for college, Taylor said. 

"Our assumption is that this will result in 5,000 more degree and certificate holders in Maine," she said. Taylor said approximately 35 applications have been submitted to MDF and they keep coming in every day. 

Scholarships will be awarded in April. 

MDF would like to extend a special thank you to its scholarship fund supporters this year, including:  Bangor Savings Bank, Cianbro, Disability RMS, Pratt & Whitney, R.H. Reny's Inc., Unum, WEX, the Maine Community Foundation and the John T Gorman Foundation.

 To apply, go to www.mdf.org or via email/fax/postal mail with the PDF form on this site.