To ensure Emory's doors are open to all exceptional students who are admitted regardless of their finances, the University has begun an initiative to increase endowment funding for scholarships in every school.
In 2011-12, Emory provided nearly $395 million for student tuition costs, partly from its own sources and partly from federal, state and other external sources. Alumni, friends, faculty and staff helped increase scholarship support during the seven-year Campaign Emory, which concluded in December 2012, but student need continues to outpace scholarship funding.
During the past few years of uncertainty in the global economy, family budgets have faced additional stress, and the need for scholarship support has increased dramatically. Private investments in scholarships offer the only chance that many talented men and women have to pursue an Emory education.
Because scholarship support gives Emory's schools the ability to create classes that include the best students regardless of income, the result is a student body that better reflects the world outside Emory's gates and, therefore, better serves that world, says Emory President James Wagner.
"Through scholarships, Emory ensures that the highest-achieving students will come here to study," Wagner explains in a new video encouraging support for student scholarships.
"Each of those students becomes the star of a story about breaking boundaries, starting a cycle of success, adding value to society, contributing to the global economy, and helping Emory build its standing as a destination university devoted to excellence," he says.
Giselle Barrera 15MBA is a good example. In her home country of El Salvador, she worked for a petroleum company that offered to pay for her MBA expenses if she stayed there. She said no, gambling that she could get into a top American business school and find a scholarship to support her. Goizueta Business School offered assistance through a scholarship funded by the family foundation of alumna Sarah Beth Brown 89MBA.
"I wanted to get out of my comfort zone and wanted to get a world-class education that would help me make a bigger difference," Barrera says. "The Brown MBA Scholarship turned possibility into a reality for me. I hope one day I am able to pay it forward to a student who—just like me—has all the drive and capabilities to attend Goizueta but lacks the financial resources to make it happen."