The Maricopa Community Colleges Foundation received $10,000 for the 2018 – 2019 school year from the General Consulate of Mexico in Phoenix. The Foundation has received two consecutive awards through their IME Becas scholarship program. The first $7,000 gift was for students enrolled during 2017 – 2018 school year. The Maricopa Community Colleges Foundation has matched each gift from the Consulate.
The Foundation has awarded $1,000 scholarships to 20 students attending one of the ten MCCCD colleges. The IME Becas scholarship program was created by the Government of Mexico to assist students of Mexican descent who wish to pursue their high school, vocational, and college education in the United States. A significant number of students at the Maricopa Community Colleges are eligible to apply for the IME Becas scholarship. Thirty-three percent of the 200,000 plus students the district serves are Latina/o. During the Spring 2017 semester, Mesa Community College alone reported that nearly ninety percent of its DACA eligible students were from Mexico.
The Maricopa Community College Foundation offers scholarships that are made possible by passionate community members committed to helping Maricopa Community College students pursue their educational dreams. Each scholarship has specific criteria and ninety eight percent of its privately funded scholarships can be awarded to students regardless of their national origin or citizenship status. The Government of Mexico has provided resources through the IME Fund since 2005 to facilitate the academic and professional development of Mexicans in the United States. There are 50 consulates in the United States alone – the most for any single host country. The Consulates of Mexico, with the support of a Local Committee, elect the educational institutions and social organizations that receive IME funds.
“We are excited for the opportunities to not only receive this scholarship gift two years in a row, but also to have provided significant financial assistance to 37 students through the IME Becas program,” shares Joy Klein, Scholarship & Donor Relations Manager at the Maricopa Community Colleges Foundation. “This is definitely a challenging time for some of our Latina/o students because of the significant increase in tuition for undocumented individuals starting next semester. As a private foundation, we are grateful and humbled by partners like the Consulates of Mexico that help us create opportunities that fill in the gap for our most deserving and yet vulnerable students.”
To learn more about the Maricopa Community Colleges Foundations or the IME-BECAS Scholarship, visit https://mcccdf.org/ or https://www.sccedfoundation.org/ime-becas-2/ respectively.