The climb to commencement just got steeper

UW Tacoma has always enjoyed strong community support at its most important transition points. In 1997, when the permanent campus opened, 30 donors came forward with more than $1 million to create the Next Step Scholarships for transfer students.

When we added freshmen in 2006, an anonymous donor gave $1 million to create the First Step Scholars endowment for freshmen.

We’ve reached another transition point. Because of our state’s economic crisis, students are being asked to shoulder much more of the cost of getting a university degree. And we are asking our community to step up to support them. 

UW Tacoma is setting aside a pool of matching money for new scholarships and asking all of our alumni, faculty, staff, retirees and friends — as well as our broader business and philanthropic community — to join the university in doing everything we can to cushion the impact of rising tuition.

Make a scholarship gift and we will match it at 50 percent.

With a broad community effort to support UW Tacoma, we will create a flexible scholarship fund of $1 million to help our students make it to graduation. 

The university will provide a 50 percent match for your gift to any current-use scholarship fund that supports students with financial need. We must receive the gift by April 13, 2012.*

Now the step is yours to make.

The Step Up Scholarship initiative has ambitious goals. So do our students. Please join the university in contributing to the education of our students by making a generous gift to Step Up Scholarships.

Make your gift online

or call 253-692-4753 for more information.

*The university has designated a total of $333,333 in matching funds for Step Up Scholarships. The opportunity to have your gift matched could end before April 13 if we exhaust the matching funds before then.