New Assistance

From the LA Times: ...The UCLA Foundation has announced a new $5-million gift for scholarships, the campus COVID-19 emergency relief fund, mental health services, leadership training, basic needs support and student government programs. The foundation, which manages a $5.7-billion endowment, also provided the campus with an additional $129 million for general campus needs for this academic year after increasing its quarterly payout of endowed funds from 4.25% to 5%.

“It’s a big message to students that the people who donate to the university care deeply about the problems and challenges they have,” said foundation Chair Craig Ehrlich. “Rather than save the funds for a rainy day, that rainy day is today.”

The gift will provide $1 million to the Chancellor’s Blue and Gold Scholarship Fund, which supports UCLA students from underserved public high schools and community colleges in L.A. County. Currently, the fund spends more than $1 million annually on scholarships, supporting about 350 students, who each receive up to $5,000 each year...

Another $1 million will go to the UCLA Black Alumni Assn. for scholarships to help the Westwood campus expand efforts to recruit top Black students. The gift will allow the alumni association to increase the number of Winston C. Doby Legacy Scholarships — which provide $10,000 annually for up to four years — from about 25 to as many as 50, said association board Chair Robert Grace. Since 2007, the scholarship fund has distributed more than $3.4 million to over 700 Black students. Grace said the additional funding came at a key time in the admissions cycle and would help UCLA in its efforts to recruit Black students considering admissions offers from other top universities with generous financial aid packages.

...The foundation gift also will provide $1 million to UCLA’s COVID Emergency Fund; $900,000 for mental health, leadership training and basic needs; and $160,000 for student government programs and internships; with $940,000 still to be allocated...

Full story at https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2020-12-21/ucla-foundation-5-million-for-students-struggling-covid-pandemic