My goal is to help Maine students achieve. As a native Mainer now pursuing a degree at an Ivy League university, I am well versed in the leap between here and there, and now it is my opportunity to give back. My goal is to help students gain access to scholarship programs, find, apply and get financial aid from colleges appropriate to their academic levels and interests, and provide students with information about free and low cost international and educational opportunities available to them by connecting them with college students who have done just that.
Ethan Pierce - Founder
Ethan Pierce - Founder
Over the past two decades, the educational system in the United States has transformed dramatically. Today, tuitions at top schools like Harvard are often over 60K per year, and that is only if you get accepted. Although the ticket price is high and admissions a hurdle, what a lot of Maine parents and students don't know is that these changes have also brought along with them incredible opportunities for students.
Over the past ten years many Ivy League and so called "Baby-Ivy" schools - schools like Harvard, Yale, Bowdoin, Colby and MIT - have made dramatic changes in how they accept students and what they charge for tuition.
These schools have made a pledge to help students from low income families graduate for there schools without the burden of unnecessary amounts of debt. At Harvard, for example, students whose families make less than 65K per annum have no parental contribution in their financial aid packages, which essentially means that those students are able to go to school for little to no cost, including room and board.
For students whose families make more than that, but not enough to comfortably pay for tuition, these schools often ask for a small family contribution on a sliding scale; the more a family makes, the more of the ticket price a family is expected to pay.
What this means is that students from low to middle income families can often attend a school with a higher ticket price for far less than the cost of instate tuition. What's more, these schools are actively seeking out students from underrepresented areas like Maine. In other words, they have slots for these students, but not enough applicants.
In addition to these fantastic sources of aid, there are large pools of scholarship money that Maine students often lose out on because they do not know where to look. One wonderful example of one of these scholarship opportunities is the Mitchell Scholarship, which provides a 6K scholarship to one student from every high school in the State of Maine. Run by the Mitchell Foundation, scholars are also given access to a wide range of resources including additional funding for fellowship projects, alumni networking opportunities, and a network of fellow Mitchell Scholars to meet as they enter college.
Over the past ten years many Ivy League and so called "Baby-Ivy" schools - schools like Harvard, Yale, Bowdoin, Colby and MIT - have made dramatic changes in how they accept students and what they charge for tuition.
These schools have made a pledge to help students from low income families graduate for there schools without the burden of unnecessary amounts of debt. At Harvard, for example, students whose families make less than 65K per annum have no parental contribution in their financial aid packages, which essentially means that those students are able to go to school for little to no cost, including room and board.
For students whose families make more than that, but not enough to comfortably pay for tuition, these schools often ask for a small family contribution on a sliding scale; the more a family makes, the more of the ticket price a family is expected to pay.
What this means is that students from low to middle income families can often attend a school with a higher ticket price for far less than the cost of instate tuition. What's more, these schools are actively seeking out students from underrepresented areas like Maine. In other words, they have slots for these students, but not enough applicants.
In addition to these fantastic sources of aid, there are large pools of scholarship money that Maine students often lose out on because they do not know where to look. One wonderful example of one of these scholarship opportunities is the Mitchell Scholarship, which provides a 6K scholarship to one student from every high school in the State of Maine. Run by the Mitchell Foundation, scholars are also given access to a wide range of resources including additional funding for fellowship projects, alumni networking opportunities, and a network of fellow Mitchell Scholars to meet as they enter college.