At a celebratory Inauguration dinner on October 17, President Mark Thompson announced the creation of a $10 million scholarship challenge called the ASAP (Advancing Student Access and Potential).
“College was my ticket to a lifetime of security and success,” Thompson says. “It transformed me. I want everyone who has an interest and motivation to have the same opportunity as I did.”
President Thompson and his wife, Karyn Thompson, were the first donors to make their personal commitment to this important scholarship challenge.
With the ASAP challenge, Wentworth aims to increase the amount of permanent financial aid available to students. The university for the first time will be taking $5 million of unrestricted funds from its endowment to match dollar for dollar the creation of new endowed scholarships of $25,000 or more, thereby doubling their impact for students and expanding the school’s overall scholarship endowment
to more than $35 million. Under ASAP, the university will also match gifts of $25,000 or more that are made to existing scholarship funds.
This initiative will run through June of 2021, or until all $5 million in matching funds is expended. The funds will help to:
• create high-school-to-college pathways for Boston youth;
• attract more women and underrepresented populations to Wentworth’s engineering, science, math, design, and management programs;
• fill gaps between federal and state grants, and merit-based funding;
• support students who may need more time to complete their college degrees; and
• help students from lower-income or working-class families reduce their debt level at graduation.
— Dennis Nealon
