This grant will provide funding to NCSEAA to continue the Golden LEAF Scholars program. The program awards scholarships of $3,000/year to students from rural areas of North Carolina that are economically distressed or tobacco dependent. The program tries to identify those students with strong connections to their home communities in hopes that the students will return to rural North Carolina after graduation. The award includes 215 new scholarships, 531 renewal scholarships. The grant will also support 40 renewal half-year scholarships participating in bridge programs such as the Regionally Increasing Baccalaureate Nurses program (RIBN), in which the student jointly enrolls in community college and a four year program and takes classes at the community college campus during the first three years along with at least one online course per semester at the four-year college or university. Scholarships also support students in Pharm.D and similar combined degree programs in which students receive both a baccalaureate degree and a graduate degree.
