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Employee Ownership Foundation Trustee Scholars Program
Deadline to apply: February 14, 2025 11:59 pm EST

The Employee Ownership Foundation has established a new scholarship for children of employee owners working at ESOPs that are corporate members of The ESOP Association. The Trustee Scholars program was founded to assist with post-secondary education expenses for students planning to attend college or vocational programs.

The program is administered by Scholarship America®, the nation’s largest designer and manager of scholarships and other education support programs for corporations, foundations, associations, and individuals. Eligibility for individual programs is determined at the sole discretion of the sponsor and eligible applications are reviewed by Scholarship America’s evaluation team.

Applicants to the Employee Ownership Foundation Trustee Scholars Program must:

  • Be dependent children of an employee*, age 22 and under, or an employee** of corporate members of The ESOP Association (TEA). Companies must be a corporate member of The ESOP Association for a minimum of one-year as of the application deadline date.
    *Dependent children are defined as biological, step- or legally adopted children living in the employee’s household or primarily supported by the employee.

    **Employee is defined as any part-time or full-time employee at a corporate member company regardless of their vesting status in the company’s ESOP plan.

  • Be high school seniors, graduates, or current college undergraduates.
  • Plan to enroll in full-time undergraduate study at an accredited two- or four-year college, university, or vocational-technical school for the entire upcoming academic year.*

*Certification programs must be through an accredited institution and must run on a standard academic semester calendar. Certification programs must be a minimum of one semester/term in length and applicants must be enrolled at the time awards are disbursed in August.

Awards

If selected as a recipient, the student will receive a $5,000 award. Up to two (2) scholarships will be awarded to separate individuals.

Awards are renewable up to three years or until a bachelor’s degree is earned, whichever occurs first, on the basis of satisfactory academic performance, maintaining a cumulative grade point average of 2.5 on a 4.0 scale, and full-time enrollment.

Awards are for undergraduate study only.

Notification

All applicants will be notified in early May.

Payment of Scholarships

Scholarship America processes scholarship payments on behalf of the Employee Ownership Foundation. Payments will be made in early August.

Selection of Recipients

Scholarship recipients are selected on the basis of:

  • Academic record
  • Demonstrated leadership and participation in school and community activities
  • Work experience
  • A statement of educational and career goals and objectives
  • Unusual personal or family circumstances
  • Financial need

Selection of finalists is made by Scholarship America. The Employee Ownership Foundation finalist committee will select scholarship recipients. Not all applicants to the program will be selected as recipients. Students may reapply to the program each year they meet eligibility requirements. All applicants agree to accept the decision as final.

As part of your application, you must upload the following:

  • A current, complete transcript of grades. Grade reports are not accepted. Transcripts must display:
    • Student name
    • School name
    • Grades
    • Credit hours for each course and term in which each course was taken.
  • Copy of the first two pages of the most recently filed IRS Form 1040 used for the Financial Information section of the application. Please black out all social security numbers and bank account information.
  • In addition, applicants will be asked to submit a two-minute video answering the following question: “What does employee ownership mean to you, your loved ones, and/or your community?” Only the finalist committee will review videos.

NOTE: If you are providing SAT or ACT test scores, and those scores are not listed on your high school transcript, you will need to upload a copy of your test score report(s) separately. If you are uploading a college transcript, those scores are not required.

Your application is not complete unless all required materials are submitted electronically.

The Employee Ownership Foundation Inc. has partnered with Scholarship America. Selecting the button below will redirect you to the Scholarship America Student Hub!

Please make sure to add studentsupport@scholarshipamerica.org as well as the program email address provided below in the footer as safe senders in your email contact list.