LINCOLNSHIRE, IL — February 6, 2024 — The Selected Educational Trust has announced that, going forward, it will remove the full-time enrollment requirement from its application requirements for the Second-Career Scholarship Program. With this change, for the first time ever, part-time students are now eligible to apply for the scholarship, which grants at least four $1,500 awards each year.
“This is the most significant change that we’ve made to this scholarship program since it was launched in 2010. We feel this change reflects the unique nature of making the choice to enter funeral service as a second career or later in life,” said Stefanie Favia, Executive Director of the Trust. “Students must strike a distinctive balance of supporting themselves and their families, service to community, and typically many other commitments. This means they often could not enroll full-time, automatically disqualifying them for a scholarship that was designed specifically for them. This change ensures those students are not overlooked, but rather, celebrated.”
Applications are now being accepted for the Spring 2024 program. Visit selectedtrust.org/second career-scholarship to apply, or contact info@selectedtrust.org. The application period closes at midnight on May 31.
Recipients of the Fall 2023 cycle of the program, sponsored by C&J Financial, are Cassandra Koukios and Emily Murman, both students enrolled at Worsham College of Funeral Service, Wheeling, IL.
“Winning the scholarship is important to me not only because it alleviates some of the financial pressure I face as student with loans from previous degrees, but it reaffirms that the hard work I did in my previous career as a writer and teacher has not gone unnoticed,” said recipient Emily Murman. “I believe that it will carry my teaching skills into my mortuary science career, and I cannot wait to see what the future holds.”
Second-Career Scholarships are awarded by the Selected Educational Trust to individuals who have chosen funeral service later in their career journey and currently are attending mortuary school. Since this program was launched in 2010, the Trust has awarded more than $95,000 in tuition scholarships to students pursuing mortuary sciences as a second career.
For more information about the Selected Educational Trust, visit www.selectedtrust.org or contact Stefanie Favia, Senior Director of Development, at stefanie@selectedtrust.org.
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About the Selected Educational Trust
The mission of the Selected Educational Trust (www.selectedtrust.org) is to provide the best educational opportunities for the advancement and support of all who work within the independent funeral service profession. To fulfill this mission, the Trust provides programs which offer scholarships to mortuary science students and funeral service professionals, education programs serving to bridge the gap between school and on-the-job training through its Institute for Exceptional Funeral Service (www.funeral-institute.org) and networking and employment opportunities through its Workforce Development Centers.
