Flight Training and Post-Secondary scholarships Offered

The Experimental Aircraft Association has made known that applications for 2024 EAA Aviation Scholarships will be accepted from 01 November 2023 through 01 March 2024. Flight training and post-secondary scholarships are available to all persons over the age of 16.

Flight training scholarships help cover costs at any U.S. or Canadian flight school that isn’t a university program. Post-secondary scholarships help pay for collegiate level programs in the United States, including but not limited to: aerospace or aeronautical engineering, aviation business administration, air traffic control, aviation maintenance, professional flight, or any aviation-related STEM field.

EAA Scholarship and Fund Steward Coordinator Becca Greskoviak stated: “The costs of training and education can be one of the biggest challenges students face when trying to achieve their goals. EAA is able to help break down that barrier through our scholarship program.”

Among the newest scholarships offered by the Association is the Aviation Tax Consultants Fred McCarter Scholarship Fund. Subject scholarship was created by Daniel Chueng, the late Mr. McCarter’s business partner, for purpose of honoring the latter’s legacy following his September 2022 passing.

An accountant by profession, Mr. McCarter founded Aviation Tax Consultants (ATC) to serve the unique consultational needs of persons acquiring general aviation aircraft.  

The post-secondary scholarship created by Mr. Chueng will be awarded for the first time in May 2024 to an individual pursuing a career in aviation—preferentially a non-pilot career.

In addition to offering new scholarships, 2024 will see the EAA carry on the longstanding and life-changing Ray Aviation Scholarship program. To date, Ray Aviation scholarships have helped some four-hundred individuals actualize their dreams of flight.

The program is funded by the Ray Foundation—a Florida-based organization supportive of aviation and aerospace-based education programs and organizations—managed by the EAA, and administered through the EAA Chapter network. Scholarships are awarded to young people aspiring to earn Private Pilot Certification. Ray Aviation Scholarships amount to $11,000 and may be applied to offsetting the cost of recipients’ flight-instruction.

Since the program’s 2019 introduction upwards of 730 scholarships have been provided. The current pilot-certification completion rate for Ray Scholars is 81-percent, with approximately 240 additional awardees currently in flight-training.

Founded in 1953 by a group of aviation enthusiasts headed by veteran aviator Paul Poberezny, the Experimental Aircraft Association (EAA) is an Oshkosh, Wisconsin-based non-profit aviation and aerospace organization dedicated to growing participation in flight, aircraft construction, and other aeronautical endeavors via the sharing of the spirit of aviation. Globally, the EAA’s two-hundred-thousand-strong member base is organized into nearly one-thousand chapters.

Parties interested in learning more about the EAA or applying for aviation scholarships are invited to visit www.EAA.org/Scholarships .

FMI: www.eaa.org, www.EAA.org/Scholarships