New Beaver County campaign aims to raise $22 million for local college scholarships
BEAVER, Pa. (KDKA) -- Beaver County is kicking off a campaign tonight to start something like the Pittsburgh Promise to offer college scholarships to students from Beaver County.
The initiative called "Flourish Beaver County" is working to raise $22 million for scholarships to low- and middle-income high school students to attend the Community College of Beaver County, Geneva College or Penn State Beaver.
The goal is to reverse the population decline that's been happening in Beaver County for the past decade by helping young people get a good education and job and enticing families with the scholarship money.
"We believe that if we improve our educational outcomes, we also improve our economic outcomes in the county. The county has to grow, and so we are trying to see how do get our county to grow?" CCBC president Dr. Roger Davis. "We think if we embrace our educational partners, our K-12, then we have families that want to come and stay."
Representatives from county government, schools, nonprofits, teachers' unions and community-based organizations came together to create Flourish Beaver County. The goal is to give students up to $5,000 in scholarships depending on the need, and even more for the lowest-income families, starting in two years.
For more stories, visit kidsburgh.org.