$1 Million Grant to Restore College Dreams Washed Away by Harvey
COLLEGE STATION, Texas — More than 500 students attending five Texas A&M System campuses withdrew from school and did not return after Hurricane Harvey swamped the Texas coast in 2017.
A $1 million grant from the State of Qatar via the Qatar Harvey Fund will now help to support those aspiring scholars with a revamped safety net and money to help cover their tuition, fees, books, living expenses and even emergency expenses at Texas A&M University, Texas A&M University at Galveston, Prairie View A&M University, Texas A&M University-Corpus Christi and Texas A&M University-Kingsville.
The money will help students whose lives were upended by Hurricane Harvey and who slipped through the existing safety net at each campus.
Funding for the grant was provided by the State of Qatar through its Qatar Harvey Fund, a $30 million fund established in 2017 for the long-term recovery of southeast Texas. The funding will be granted through a partnership between the Qatar Harvey Fund and the Rebuild Texas Fund. The Rebuild Texas Fund, a collaborative project of the Michael & Susan Dell Foundation and the OneStar Foundation, was created to support the rebuilding of Texas communities hit hard by Hurricane Harvey.
The $1 million grant to the Texas A&M System is the fourth scholarship program created by the Qatar Harvey Fund and Rebuild Texas Fund to assist students in southeast Texas. The two funds also jointly established the Qatar Harvey Fund Scholarship Program at Houston Community College, University of Houston System and Lamar University.
“Qatar and Texas have many long-standing ties, including a Texas A&M campus in Qatar that has awarded some 900 engineering degrees over more than a dozen years,” said His Excellency Sheikh Meshal bin Hamad Al-Thani, Qatar’s Ambassador to the U.S. “When we saw the devastation from Hurricane Harvey, we created the Qatar Harvey Fund to help our friends in Texas recover from the storm. We are proud to once again partner with the Rebuild Texas Fund to support Texas students impacted by Hurricane Harvey.”
John Sharp, Chancellor of the Texas A&M System, said the grant will give deserving students a second chance at their college dreams.
“The Texas A&M University System is very thankful for this grant,” Chancellor Sharp said. “This money will help rebuild the future for hundreds of deserving Texans whose dreams of obtaining a degree were rained on by Harvey.”
To be eligible for assistance, a student must be:
Either a current student impacted by Hurricane Harvey and enrolled in one of the five included A&M System universities;
Or, be a student who withdrew from one of these universities as a result of Hurricane Harvey and has not yet re-enrolled;
Or, be a student who was admitted to one of these universities beginning in the Fall of 2017 but did not attend because of Harvey. Students must also have had a minimum cumulative grade point average of 2.0 for undergraduate and 3.0 for graduate and doctoral students if currently enrolled.
The applicant must also be able to demonstrate, with data or anecdotally, the effect of Harvey on their financial situation. The grant money would be available for the Fall 2019 semester.
To learn more, contact:
- Texas A&M University:
Deanna Holder, Financial Aid Advisor. 979-845-3236. dholder@tamu.edu - Prairie View A&M:
Steve Ransom, Associate Vice Dean of Students. 936-261-3550. http://www.pvamu.edu/sa/hurricane-harvey-relief/ - Texas A&M University at Galveston:
Ken Bailey, Director of Career and Ability Services. 409-740-4725. baileyk@tamug.edu - Texas A&M University-Kingsville:
Kirsten Compary, Assistant Vice President for Student Affairs and Dean of Student. 361-593-3606. Kirsten.compary@tamuk.edu - Texas A&M University-Corpus Christi:
Kristeen Gonzalez, Student Assistance Coordinator. http://harveyhelp.tamucc.edu/. harveyhelp@tamucc.edu
###
About The Texas A&M University System
The Texas A&M University System is one of the largest systems of higher education in the nation, with a budget of $4.7 billion. Through a statewide network of 11 universities and seven state agencies, the Texas A&M System educates more than 153,000 students and makes more than 22 million additional educational contacts through service and outreach programs each year. System-wide, research and development expenditures exceeded $996 million in FY 2017 and helped drive the state’s economy.
About the Qatar Harvey Fund and the State of Qatar
Following the devastation of Hurricane Harvey in August 2017, the State of Qatar announced a gift of $30 million for the long-term recovery of the storms victims in Texas. The Qatar Harvey Fund was created to administer the gift. Qatar is an independent state in the southern Arabian Gulf. It has a population of approximately 2.7 million people, the majority of whom live in and around Doha, the capital. Diplomatic relations with the United States were established in 1972; in the same year, Qatar’s first diplomatic mission in Washington, D.C. opened. The relationship between the two countries has always been friendly, highly productive, and reciprocal. Qatar is home to many Americans, and the United States is both Qatar’s largest foreign investor and its largest source of imports. Qatar-U.S. relations are growing continuously in multiple areas: economic, political, military, educational, and cultural. Qatar is a close ally of the United States and a strong advocate of building a peaceful, prosperous, and stable Middle East. Qatar has provided significant humanitarian and development assistance to countries around the world, including the United States.
About the Rebuild Texas Fund
The Rebuild Texas Fund is a collaborative project of the Michael & Susan Dell Foundation and the OneStar Foundation, established to support the rebuilding efforts in communities impacted by Hurricane Harvey. The Rebuild Texas Fund works alongside organizations and community leaders in the following six focus areas: community and economic development; education and childcare; health; housing; rebuilding small businesses and workforce and transportation. The Rebuild Texas Fund will fund projects and organizations through July 2019 and will continue to work alongside communities through 2020. Funding through the Rebuild Texas Fund is provided to eligible nonprofit, government, corporate, and philanthropic organizations working on the ground in affected Texas communities. More information about the Rebuild Texas Fund is available at www.rebuildtx.org.
Contact: Laylan Copelin
Vice Chancellor of Marketing and Communications
(979) 458-6425
(512) 289-2782 cell
lcopelin@tamus.edu