This undertaking was launched in 2002 to address the stark disproportion of access to higher education between young people from rural and urban areas. It was meant to help gifted youngsters from small towns and villages, former state farms (PGR) in particular, make the decision to continue their education at universities by awarding them first-year scholarships.
From the beginning “Bridge Scholarships,” initiated by PAFF, was a joint undertaking of many partners. Now the scholarships are financed by the Polish-American Freedom Foundation, the Inter Cars Foundation, and by a coalition of local non-governmental organizations. The program is carried out with organizational help from the National Support Center for Agriculture (formerly the Agricultural Property Agency), and in cooperation with the Professor Bronisław Geremek Center Foundation. So far the Partners have provided nearly PLN 149 million for the program. More than 28,000 scholarships have been granted since the beginning of the program, including 19,000 for the first year of studies.
The “Diploma of Dreams” campaign, which aims to encourage and support more local non-governmental organizations to take up similar scholarship initiatives aligned with the “Bridge Scholarships” concept, has resulted in engaging 200 NGOs in helping more than 7,000 students since 2006.
After several years “Bridge Scholarships” evolved into a complex scholarship system, offering much more than a stipend for the first year of studies. Today the scholarship holders who do well in their academic pursuits have the possibility of receiving assistance in successive years of study. For the second year they may enter the Top Student competition; they may apply for corporate scholarships for their third and fourth years. Additionally, the program offers language scholarships, workshops preparing scholarship holders for entering the job market and challenges of the digitalized world, and annual Scientific Start conferences.
There are also summer internships in the USA organized in cooperation with the Embassy of the United States in Warsaw (the Polish-American Internship Initiative – PAII). From 2011to 2019, 108 students completed internships in thirteen corporations, including: Boeing, Chevron North America, Citigroup, GE Hitachi Nuclear Energy, MoneyGram, Pittsburgh Glass Works LLC, Raytheon BBN Technologies, Sikorsky Aircraft Corporation, Westinghouse Electric Company, and Discovery Inc. Additionally, thanks to cooperation with the Transatlantic Future Leaders Forum, 18 students completed their internships at the United States Congress.
In the past, one of the program segments offered scientific scholarships to the best performing young people from small towns and villages who studied economics at non-state universities and private business schools. Between 2001 and 2014 nearly 7,000 such scholarships were granted.
Surveys conducted among program graduates show that 98 percent believe their bridge scholarship significantly improved their financial standing during their studies. 90 percent of scholarship holders achieve good or very good academic results, 70 percent finish their studies on time, and only 5 percent discontinued their studies.
Under this program PAFF supports the Entrepreneurship Olympics, a joint initiative of the Foundation for the Promotion and Accreditation of Economic Education and the five largest Polish economic universities: the Warsaw School of Economics (SGH), and the Economic Universities in Katowice, Cracow, Poznań, and Wrocław. The aim of the initiative is to promote entrepreneurship among high school students across Poland. The 2024 Olympics attracted almost 7,000 pupils from nearly 700 schools.
The Bridge Scholarships Program enables PAFF to support the development of scholarships and volunteer services carried out by the Good Network Foundation which runs the My Scholarship website (mojestypendium.pl) – the largest Polish website about scholarships.
“Rzeczpospolita,” “Forum Akademickie,” “Perspektywy” and the dlaStudenta.pl website provide media sponsorship for the program.
PAFF has disbursed $31,427,240, including $896,427 for the current edition.
