Establishing an endowed undergraduate need-based scholarship is one way to change lives. Scholarships remove barriers and create for our students and their families pathways to futures that would otherwise be unreachable.

Through the Georgia Commitment Scholarship Program, the UGA Foundation will match—dollar for dollar—any gift in the amount of $50,000, $75,000, or $100,000 to establish an endowed undergraduate need-based scholarship. Once a donor commits, their scholarship will be awarded to a deserving student within a year while the endowment grows.

Imagine: a donation of $100,000 transforms into an endowment of $200,000, an endowment that will provide a significant grant, every year, to support a deserving student with unmet financial need. The size of the scholarship award will increase over time as the endowment grows, and the endowment will live on forever, helping student after student to earn a degree from the University of Georgia. This matching program has the potential to create as many as 400 to 600 new need-based scholarships—a giant step toward eliminating the financial obstacles facing many of our students.

The University of Georgia will start awarding these scholarships in the fall of 2017.