Complete Your Degree Program

The Foundation’s board began an in-depth look at our scholarship program’s impact in 2019, including how to support adult learners. The Complete Your Degree (CYD) program, pioneered by St. Clair Community Foundation, is a way to redefine and reimagine how scholarship assets are used to support the continuing education of young adults. Our goal is to help local adults achieve their degrees and credentials to increase their household prosperity while fostering a more vibrant economy and meeting the employment skill gap in Oceana County.

Working closely with multiple organizations throughout our region, and specifically with our friends and partners at Muskegon and West Shore Community Colleges, CYD is a highly competitive needs-based scholarship that also provides financial support for a wide range of “life needs” to adult learners accepted into the program. Together with the state’s Futures for Frontliners, MI Reconnect programs, or other resources available to students, CYD will cover the full cost of tuition at MCC or WSCC. Funding for life needs will be above and beyond providing last-dollars-in money to cover tuition, books, and related supplies for students at MCC/WSCC. Life needs support will include, but not be limited to, helping young adults overcome temporary obstacles such as food, clothing, medical care, transportation, daycare, and housing.

In establishing a Complete Your Degree program in Oceana County, four applicants were accepted into the initial cohort in Fall 2022. In Winter 2023, four more students were accepted into the program. CYD will provide competitive needs-based scholarships, which will cover the full cost of tuition at one of our local community colleges. A success coach, employed by the Foundation, will walk alongside students to provide extra support to ensure CYD students thrive. For more information, check our CYD Info Sheet. If you are interested in supporting or learning more about this initiative, email Elly Bainbridge

You can help support Oceana’s adult learners by making an online gift to the Complete Your Degree Program Fund here. 

 

  • Why?  

    The Foundation’s board began an in-depth look at our scholarship program’s impact in 2019, including how to support adult learners. The Complete Your Degree (CYD) program, pioneered by St. Clair Community Foundation, is a way to “redefine and reimagine how scholarship assets are used to support the continuing education of adults.”  

    Who is eligible?  

    Oceana County adult residents who: 

    • Completed some college credits at MCC/WSCC or another college, but who are at risk of not completing their college education due to life needs and obstacles 
    • Previously tried college or university at a four-year institution 
    • Graduated from high school and did not start college immediately after high school and are going back at an older age 
    • Meet one or more of the following criteria: single parent; 1st generation college student; from single parent families; low-income; lives on own without any family support, minority; TIP eligible (Tuition Incentive Program); suffered some personal trauma or lives with a significant disability

    For more information, check our CYD Info Sheet. If you are interested in supporting or learning more about this initiative, email Elly Bainbridge.

  • In order to meet students where they need us, we have opened our application year-round. Students can apply at any point!  

    Turn ‘someday’ into today by submitting an application through our GoApply system here: 

    Please read through these  CYD Application Instructions  to help navigate our application portal! 

    Once accepted into the program, students can receive:  

    • A renewable academic scholarship for MCC or WSCC, (up to $5,000/year – fall/winter/summer semesters)
    • Support & resource referrals from a CYD Success Coach 
    • Emergency aid funding to help students meet their basic needs and reduce barriers impacting student success (up to $2,500/year)

  • The Complete Your Degree program is a project of the Community Foundation for Oceana County and is supported by these donors and endowed Foundation funds:

    • Hager-Lacey Memorial Scholarship Fund
    • ​Helen Hutt Scholarship Fund
    • ​Randall & Linda Wagner Family Fund
    • ​Phillip & Cathy Brown
    • ​LaBarge-Beeber Family Fund
    • ​Bluhm-Lockwood Trust Fund 
    • ​Mears United Methodist Church
    • Trinity Health West MI Impact Grant Program
    • William R Lathers Foundation Fund
    • Dan & Laura Muirhead Fund
    • Memorial donations in honor of Kathy Owens
    • Anonymous

    You can help support Oceana’s adult learners by making an online gift to the Complete Your Degree Program Fund here. 

     

  • Adult student scholarships are offered on a rolling basis to Oceana County residents (or residents of an Oceana-based school district) who have been out of high school for at least one year and/or have a gap in their post-secondary education.  Adult students are often (but not always) prospective undergraduate students who are 25 years of age or older. Adult students may also have other identifying criteria, such as full-time employment, parenthood, care of elderly parents, or prior military service.

    Scholarship applications will be accepted and reviewed on a rolling basis until resources are depleted.

    Scholarship Application is closed at this time, we are directing all scholars to apply to our CYD program  

    Questions?  Call Elly Bainbridge, 231.869.3377, or e-mail elly@oceanafoundation.org. Applicants should expect to hear from the Foundation within 30 days of submitting their application.

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