Horatio Alger Award
| Formation | 1947 |
|---|---|
| Founders |
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| Type | 501(c)(3) |
| Headquarters | Alexandria, Virginia, United States |
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Key people
|
Byron Trott, CEO |
| Website | horatioalger |
The Horatio Alger Association of Distinguished Americans is a nonprofit organization based in Alexandria, Virginia, that was founded in 1947 to honor the achievements of outstanding Americans who have succeeded in spite of adversity and to emphasize the importance of higher education. The association is named for Horatio Alger, a 19th-century author of hundreds of dime novels in the "rags-to-riches" genre, extolling the importance of perseverance and hard work.
The association gives the annual Horatio Alger Award to exemplars of its ideals. It also grants scholarships, and describes itself as the largest provider of need-based scholarships in the United States. All scholarships are funded by the generosity of the members of the Horatio Alger Association.
The Horatio Alger Association has one of the largest, privately funded, need-based college scholarship programs in the United States. Scholarships offered include the National Scholarship, State Scholarships and the Dennis R. Washington Achievement Scholarship.
The National Scholars Program was created in 1984 to help American high school seniors who had overcome adversity to attend college. Over time the Horatio Alger Association has expanded the program. Every year, the association awards more than 100 scholarships to students from every U.S. state and Puerto Rico. Grants received by these National Scholars are valued at $20,000 each. Recipients are also given an all-expenses-paid trip to Washington, D.C. where they meet association members, attend the Horatio Alger Awards Ceremony, and learn about the federal government and the American free enterprise system. Since its inception in 1984, the program has awarded more than $70 million in college scholarships.
In 2010, the association gave $20,000 scholarships to 104 high school seniors. Also, thanks to Force10 Networks, in recent years each recipient was given a wireless-enabled computer for use in college.
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