A couple of scholarship deadlines are approaching for minority students in Indiana who want to become teachers. Two scholarships – the William A. Crawford Minority Teacher Scholarship and Earline S. Rogers Student Teaching Stipend for Minorities – offer financial aid for minority students who meet academic requirements and commit to teaching at least three years after earning a college degree. Stephanie Wilson with the Indiana Commission for Higher Education says minorities are under-represented in Hoosier classrooms.
Applications for the minority teacher scholarship will be accepted through September 4th. For the teaching stipend, applications are accepted according to when students plan to student teach.
Wilson says they want to help high school students who want to go to college to study education, but there’s also a financial need for students already enrolled in the program.
The Center for American Progress did a state-by-state analysis and came up with a diversity index that compares the percentage of nonwhite students to nonwhite teachers. The national average is a gap of 30 percentage points. Indiana’s score is better, coming in at 20.