The Foundation Scholars Program (FSP) is a program that supports first-year students in the College of Liberal Arts with their transition from High School to UT Austin. FSP is composed of 40 peer mentors who work with a cohort of first-year students throughout their freshman year at UT Austin. Our program also provides academic advising, requires a class in the fall (LA101), provides scholarships, and creates community service and networking opportunities for our students.
The funds from our 40 for 40 campaign would allow us to provide more scholarships for our FSP students as well as to create an in-house emergency fund. These emergency funds would be used to help our students purchase textbooks, replace laptops, and cover any unexpected university and/or housing debts.
These funds would ultimately allow us to make sure that our FSP students always have the resources that they need to be successful. While our FSP Mentors do everything in their power to help their mentees through the daily struggles of college life, they are limited when it comes to helping our students with financial crises. Sometimes it only takes something as small as an unexpected housing bill, a broken laptop and/or sudden loss of financial support to make this journey at UT Austin seem impossible which is why we are hoping to be able to alleviate some of these stressors.
The Foundation Scholars Program (FSP) has been able to develop a strong community over the years and we would love to have the opportunity to better help our students be successful during their transition to UT Austin.