UNCF

UNCF- the United Negro College Fund is the administrator of the Gates Millennium Scholar Program. The partnership with UNCF the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation was established in 1999, as a 1.6 billion dollar initiative funded grant.

For more than seven decades, A mind is a terrible thing to waste.”® has remained at the heart of UNCF, enabling them to help more than 430,000 students and counting not just attend college, but thrive, graduate and become leaders.

The approach to do this work is done in three ways: By awarding more than 10,000 students scholarships, worth more than $100 million, each year. By providing financial support to 37 historically black colleges and universities (HBCUs). And by serving as the nation’s leading advocate for the importance of minority education and community engagement.

This three-pronged approach is powerful: Since our founding in 1944, we’ve helped to more than double the number of minorities attending college. The six-year graduation rate for UNCF African American scholarship recipients is 70 percent. This is 11 percentage points higher than the national average and 31 percentage points higher than the national average for all African Americans.

To learn more about UNCF please visit their website at www.uncf.org.