Shorelight Education and Bath Spa University have developed a partnership providing two students attending Massachusetts community colleges to study abroad and earn a bachelor’s degree, the Massachusetts Department of Higher Education announced in a Wednesday press release.
The full two-year scholarship affords students the opportunity to study at Bath Spa University, in Bath Spa, England and is worth approximately $85,000, the release stated.
“The primary goal of the scholarship program is to help aspiring community college students turn their business ideas into reality through the combination of a rigorous academic curriculum with real-world resources available in the Bath-Bristol region — a major innovation hub and the UK’s second largest community of tech startups,” the release stated.
Shorelight Education CEO and co-founder, Tom Dretler, said the goals of the scholarship are to provide community college students with the chance to earn a bachelor’s degree and study abroad, as well as remove any financial barriers that these students may be faced with.
“We know that many students can’t necessarily afford to go to England and study for two years and they might not be able to be in school. They might need to be working. Through this scholarship, we remove those barriers,” he said. We didn’t just take care of tuition and fees. We’re also taking care of all the other major expenses a study will have: housing, even airfare back and forth from the U.K.”
Dretler said he initially thought of the idea as a member on the board of trustees of Massachusetts Bay Community College and suggested it to his colleagues. Bath Spa has six schools of study and has been named one of the U.K.’s top creative universities by “Which?” magazine for three straight years, which Dretler said is an important part of an entrepreneurial school.
“[Bath Spa] is one of the U.K.’s most creative universities and one of the best student experiences in the U.K., and for a school of entrepreneurship, we wanted to blend a business with creativity and design to foster the kind of innovation that today’s entrepreneurs need,” he said.
The two students who will receive the scholarships are chosen based on an extensive application, including an essay and short video and letters of recommendation, and they must maintain at least a 3.0 GPA, said Katy Abel, associate commissioner of external affairs for the Massachusetts Department of Higher Education.
Abel said that the Department of Higher Education sees the scholarship as particularly beneficial because it is aimed at community college students, who she said tend to have more limited resources than typical college students in Massachusetts.
“What we like about the scholarship is that it is specifically designed for students who show a lot of entrepreneurial ability. That is something that many of our community college students have and then I think the general public perhaps might be surprised to hear,” Abel said.
The role of the scholarship in recognizing the ambition of community college students and increasing opportunities for higher education also makes it important, Abel said.
“One of the things that this highlights is that there probably needs to be more such opportunities,” she said. “Massachusetts currently ranks 46 in the nation in the amount of need-based aid it provides to college students. That’s a pretty low ranking for a state that lives and dies by its brainpower.”
Several residents said they were in support of offering deserving community college students the ability to study abroad.
Brockton Macelli, 19, of the South End, said no matter what type of institution of higher education a student attends, they deserve to have the opportunity to study abroad.
“There shouldn’t be a difference between community colleges and other universities, so if a student deserves a scholarship, then they definitely deserve to be able to study abroad,” he said.
Vishal Sharoff, 20, of the South End, said giving Massachusetts students an opportunity to study abroad is invaluable.
“It sounds like a great opportunity. As someone who’s studying in Boston, I know how hard it is to get a chance to do something like that,” he said. “It’s really important to help people in need and provide them with opportunities like this.”
