UND Launches $1.5 Million Endowment for Scholarships

The University of North Dakota announced it will give away $1.5 million to students in its aviation program to help with tuition costs. The money — three equal $500,000 contributions — comes from the UND Aerospace Foundation, UND Promise Scholarship Program and James C. Ray Foundation. The endowment was named the James C. Ray Memorial Freshman Scholarship Endowment after James C. Ray, who contributed more than $25 million to UND over his lifetime. Ray died this year at the age of 94.

Each year, beginning in the fall of 2019, the school will award a total of $60,000, broken down into $7,000 to $10,000, to anywhere from six to nine freshman students. An application to the program provides automatic eligibility to apply for the scholarships. The base tuition at UND varies between $8,477 to $20,047 per year depending on the student’s residency. The total cost for the flight programs add between $5,277 and $94,500 over the course of the program. UND said there are about 130 additional aviation-related scholarships that students can apply for to help with the cost.

“We need to help more students achieve the dream of attending college without overloading their families with student loan debt,” said DeAnna Carlson Zink, CEO of the UND Alumni Association and Foundation.

UND celebrates its 50th anniversary next year. It is one of the biggest aviation universities in the country with nearly 2,000 students in flying-related programs. With more than 150 fixed-wing and rotary aircraft and flight training devices, a fleet the school claims is the largest of any public university in the world, UND amasses more than 150,000 flight hours per year.

In addition to its flight related programs, UND offers programs in unmanned aircraft systems operations, aviation/airport management, commercial aviation, air traffic control, aviation technology management and more.