Sources of Money 37: Armed Forces Communications & Electronics Assoc.

Tuesdays we review a source of financial aid to help you pay for college

Travis, a military officer with 15 years in the US Army Signal Corps, decided to enroll in a computer science graduate program to work on cyber security. The financial obligations would have seriously affected his family of six. Travis applied for several financial aid programs. Among them, he received a $5,000 award from the Armed Forces Communications & Electronics Association Cyber Security Scholarship.

Characteristics of AFCEA Financial Aid

The Armed Forces Communications & Electronics Association (AFCEA) sponsors an educational foundations whose web site proclaims:

“The AFCEA Educational Foundation is a registered 501(c)(3) non-profit organization dedicated to providing educational incentives, opportunities and assistance for people engaged in information management, communications and intelligence efforts and fostering excellence in education particularly in the "hard science" disciplines related to C4ISR.

The mission of the Foundation is to support development of engineers and technical personnel through selective training, scholarships, awards, prizes and grants for educational activities of unique and high value and professional educational programs.

The Foundation actively promotes opportunities for persons from groups under-represented in the fields of its interests.”

The AFCEA offers a variety of scholarships, grants, and tuition assistance in communications, electronics, intelligence, and information technology. They provide help for aspiring

• Engineers
• Programmers
• Technicians
• Military personnel
• Government officials

They also reward people who contributed outstanding support to the Association. They provide an easy link to identify if you live, or will study, in one of their chapter locations.

 

Disadvantages of AFCEA Financial Aid

Once again we share general requirements from their web site:

• “Applicants must be college sophomores or juniors at the time of application -- minimum second-year college students ONLY please.”
• “Please apply for one scholarship only.”
• “Graduate students must be currently enrolled in at least two semester-equivalent classes at an accredited U.S. college or university.”
• “A minimum overall GPA of 3.0 (or equivalent) is required.”
• Chapters do not cover all states in the US: seems to exclude much of the intermountain and Midwestern states

Thursday we answer additional questions about reusable and scholarship applications

This blog will improve as you submit comments, questions, and experiences. We will answer your questions in future blog posts. Please submit your comments and questions so we can answer them.