“College was always something I wanted and my family always wanted, but we didn’t know how to make it happen,” said Sarah Verneret '19. So, she applied for an Alvernia University scholarship to help fund her education. “When we found out I was going to get the scholarship we were all so happy, and my family was so proud,” she said.
Verneret is among the 98% of Alvernia students who receive some type of aid to make college more affordable. In fact, Alvernia awarded more than $6 million to incoming freshmen in 2017, which is more than double the amount offered five years before.
Alvernia’s investment in Verneret’s education has opened a vast world of real-world learning opportunities to her. In her sophomore year, the communication major traveled to Virginia to interview the daughter of Katherine Johnson, a NASA mathematician who crunched the numbers that launched the first Americans into space. And in her junior year, she spent the fall semester working as an intern in Washington, D.C., through The Washington Center Experience.
“Being at Alvernia has been a dream come true, and then some,” Verneret said. “I feel like I’ve been able to do so many things, and that’s allowed me to learn so much about myself and who I am. It lets me contribute to the community and grow as an individual.”