College Education | Student Financial Aid Resource Resource For College & Distance Education

The Gates Millennium Scholars Program (GMS), funded by a grant from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, was established in 1999 to provide outstanding, low income African American, American Indian/Alaska Native, Asian Pacific Islander American*, and Hispanic American students with an opportunity to complete an undergraduate college education in any discipline area of interest. Continuing Gates Millennium Scholars may request funding for a graduate degree program in one of the following discipline areas: computer science, education, engineering, library science, mathematics, public health or science. The goal of GMS is to promote academic excellence by providing thousands of outstanding students, who have significant financial need, the opportunity to reach their full potential.

In 1999, a bold vision of what America’s future would look like began to take shape. In that view, America’s leadership would include 20,000 individuals, all people of color, who would make a significant impact on the future direction of the nation. Coming from among the most financially needy students and attending the nation’s best colleges and universities, they would represent the extraordinary promise inherent among all highly academically capable individuals, no matter what their background. Moreover, the planners envisioned that the researched experiences of the student’s matriculation and retention, the fact of these individuals’ extraordinary successes to terminal degrees, and the testimony of their voices, would spark conversation, and perhaps debate, leading to public policies and added philanthropic contributions in support of similarly able and financially challenged young people. That vision of Bill and Melinda Gates was funded by a historic grant of more than 1 billion dollars to UNCF—the United ***** College Fund—still the largest single gift to any scholarship organization.

One of the most unique aspects of the GMS program is the partnership and collective efforts of the four partner organizations providing services to the Continuing Gates Millennium Scholars. GMS program staff members at the American Indian Graduate Center Scholars (AIGCS), the Asian & Pacific Islander American Scholarship Fund (APIASF), the Hispanic Scholarship Fund (HSF) and UNCF services students from all fifty states, the District of Columbia, American Samoa, Federated States of Micronesia, Puerto Rico, and the U.S. Virgin Islands. It is truly a national effort.

The GMS program offers leadership development programs with distinctive personal, academic and professional growth opportunities including mentoring services and an online resource center that provides up-to-date information on internship, fellowship and scholarship opportunities, as well as graduate and post-graduate resources and conferences.