Women Legislators to Award Scholarships

The Conference of Women Legislators (COWL) is accepting applications for its 2011-2012 Scholarship Award Program, which is geared toward mature women seeking their college degrees. State Sen. Christine Radogno (R-Lemont) said the scholarship program was established to assist non-traditional students who are seeking higher education, but to whom many conventional scholarship and grant programs do not apply.

“Often women dream of attending college but the cost of higher education, as well as the time commitment, forces many female students with children and families to defer that dream. The COWL scholarship is intended to help offset the costs so these women don’t end up deferring their dream indefinitely,” Radogno explained.    

Scholarship applicants are required to enroll in an Illinois accredited college or university for a minimum of six credit hours to qualify, making the scholarship available to a part-time student. The scholarship committee will consider academic achievement in conjunction with volunteer or paid community service work that benefits women in transition.

Interested parties will be required to complete an application, which can be downloaded from the COWL Web site at cowlil.com. The application must be postmarked by April 1, and all awardees will be notified of the decisions by April 30.

COWL members raise the money to finance the scholarship program. A majority of the revenue comes from annual fundraisers, which rely on participation from lawmakers from all regions of Illinois. COWL is a not-for-profit organization and a bipartisan coalition of women legislators in the Illinois General Assembly.