DENVER — The Denver Scholarship Foundation is conducting a series of financial aid workshops to provide resources to students facing economic barriers to higher education.
“We are very excited to be partnering with Capital One. We are hosting financial aid completion workshops at the Capital One Cafe at Union Station, and those are open to anyone who is planning to be in college in the 2025-'26 school year and wants to receive financial aid,” Natasha Garfield, Denver Scholarship Foundation’s Director of Scholarships and Financial Aid said.
During a time when many universities are discontinuing diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives and scholarships, prompting some students of color to look for other forms of financial aid, Garfield said the Denver Scholarship Foundation is prepared to help.
Throughout February, which is also Black History Month, Garfield said the Foundation took special care to make sure Black students and other underserved students were aware of the resources available.
According to Pew Research data, 16% of Black Americans with a bachelor's degree or higher earned $100,000 or more in 2021, compared to only 2% of Black Americans with some college education or less.
“Whether that's completing the FAFSA or the CASFA is really the first step to ensuring that they can achieve their career goals and be able to have the kind of economic future that they would like and that they would like to be able to provide for their families,” Garfield said. “The DSF scholarship is open right now. It is a need-based scholarship for Denver students. So, any student who is graduating from a DPS high school this year or graduated last year and has financial need is eligible to apply. It's available to be used at 30 colleges within Colorado.”
Garfield also said that even as some race-based scholarships are eliminated, scholarships can still help students from diverse backgrounds with their financial needs.
“So they may not offer a specific race-based scholarship anymore, given the Supreme Court guidance, but what they can do is identify students who have financial needs. That's a key piece: students who might be first generation in their family to go to college. There are many scholarships for those students, and then a lot of scholarships that are targeting students who are interested in a particular field,” Garfield said.
The Denver Scholarship Foundation will hold financial aid workshops onMarch 12, and April 7.
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