About Financial Aid for
Project SUCCEED

The purpose of the Scholarship Program in support of Project SUCCEED is to ensure that every student who is otherwise qualified and motivated may participate in SUCCEED activities without regard to ability to pay tuition or fees. We are determined that our programs are available to a diverse audience of students, including home school students and students traditionally underrepresented in the sciences.

Project SUCCEED is funded by the Burroughs Wellcome Fund and other corporate and individual contributors. These funds do not cover the costs incurred in running our programs. Many of our staff also donate their time to teach more classes than we originally envisioned. We charge "tuition" to help with the expenses of offering quality educational activities. We charge tuition for two other reasons:

1. We want both parents and students to understand and appreciate that there is a value associated with these opportunities. Our experience in providing extracurricular activities has taught us that parents and students are less likely to miss classes if there is a dollar amount attached to it!
2. We want to be "Shodorific," which means we want to use tuition dollars to extend the program beyond what we proposed we would do in getting our funding. Currently, we are extending the program by providing "no-cost" computer training to a community center in East Durham and by running a scientific computer club for a local elementary school. We are determined to use every penny of income towards reaching more students and educators.

Partial and full scholarships are available. There is no "means testing" or requirement that you provide us with evidence of financial need. We use the "honor" system. If you request a scholarship, we will ask you to decide what amount, if any, you are able to provide towards the program. (From our experience, homeschooling or single parenthood, apart from other considerations, are not sufficient indicators of financial need.)

We also welcome "in-kind" payment of tuition. This means having a parent or the student provide us with some type of service in exchange for tuition reductions or waivers. One year, one father, a professional photographer, took beautiful pictures of "kids in action" that we are able to use in promoting the program. We can always use volunteers in helping to do mailings, teach in your area of expertise, and other administrative chores.

Questions about the Scholarship program can be directed to the SUCCEED Program Director by phone at (919) 530-1911 or online by submitting an Information Request.