Transforming families and neighborhoods
Your gift to the UH Student Opportunity Fund can transform families and neighborhoods. It is a bridge for students who are first in their families to attend college. It reaches into our island communities where college attendance is not a foregone conclusion. It creates new opportunities for our children, friends and neighbors and helps build the trained workforce our state needs.
This fund supports students who:
- Demonstrate financial need
- Are the first generation in their family to attend college or
- Are one of UH’s under-represented student populations
- Preference will be given to Hawai‘i residents.
Why give to this fund?
- The standardized and broadly written criteria for this fund allows for a streamlined award process, making it easy for our students to apply.
- The streamlined award process also allows for students to be notified of awards in April-July as part of the usual financial aid cycle, so they have a more complete picture of their financial aid package when deciding if/where to attend college.
- As a donor to the UH Student Opportunity Fund, you will receive annual reports with information about student recipients and how your generous support is helping them thrive.
First-Generation Students at UH
- 1st Gen: 18,888 (32%)
- Not 1st Gen: 20,779 (39%)
- No reply: 10,751 (29%)
Note: First generation students refer to those who self-reported being the first in their immediate family to attend college. Data source: UH Institutional Research, Analysis & Planning Office, Fall 2023.
A life of service and an appearance on The Antiques Roadshow led Jackie Erickson to naming a law school classroom.
With this latest cohort, Lānaʻi High and Elementary School has seen fourteen students complete associate degrees during high school.
Fran Friend Alexander and her husband, Kirk Alexander, have endowed a scholarship that will benefit graduate students studying oceanography at UH.
The boys had seen firsthand the struggles of single-parent households and wanted to ease the burden for future students.
Students participating in the Bonner Leadership Program at UH Hilo engage in service and leadership development rooted in community connection.
When a sudden emergency forced UH Hilo graduate student and single mother Nina Kapuni to flee her home, she faced the terrifying prospect of losing stable housing.
Let’s start a conversation
If you’re interested in supporting our students, we would love to learn more about what you would like to achieve with your philanthropy.
