Georgia Commitment Scholarships change lives

The Georgia Commitment Scholarship Program was created to grow the number of need-based scholarships awarded to UGA students—a giant step toward eliminating the financial obstacles for those seeking a UGA education.

THE NEED

Each year, around 20 percent of UGA undergraduates receive a federal Pell Grant, which is awarded to students with exceptional financial need. Among those Pell Grant recipients, well over a thousand students report a family income less than tuition and fees. For many, that means everything in their college experience—housing, food, transportation, tuition—is up to them. Some contribute to their family’s income on top of it all.

And even after receiving HOPE or Zell Miller scholarships and the Pell Grant, students from the lowest income families still have a financial aid gap of $11,500 on average.

These students, who pursue education in the face of financial strain, deserve to be supported. That’s where the GCS Program comes in.

THE IMPACT

GCS donors have transformed the state of need-based aid at the University of Georgia. Over the last five years, the program has been so well received that donors have exhausted multiple rounds of matching funds—and once those were gone, new donors provided the match themselves—to generate close to $100 million in new commitments to need-based aid.

The endowments they created are providing significant scholarships in perpetuity to support deserving students with unmet financial need, and they will help generations of students earn a degree at the university. But many more students remain in need—and you can help.