The Community Division is able to offer two forms of financial assistance to our students: Fund for Access and Endangered Instrument Scholarships. All students with a demonstrated financial need (see below for criteria) are elgibile for Fund for Access assistance. Students who play certain instruments, regardless of need, are eligible for Endangered Instrument Scholarships.
Fund for Access
Thanks to leadership gifts from the Ellen Jeanne Goldfarb Memorial Trust, the Harry E. Goldfarb Family Foundation, the Hartford Foundation for Public Giving and a bequest from Mary Primrose Fuller, the Community Division has an endowment which provides tuition assistance to students with demonstrated financial need.
The Fund for Access currently provides scholarships totaling $92,000 per year to 118 students, enabling them to take private music or dance lessons; perform in an ensemble such as the Connecticut Children's Chorus, the Suzuki orchestras, or the Connecticut Youth Symphony; dance in a Dance Department ensemble. Its mission is to ensure that children whose families cannot otherwise afford it, can still participate in Community Division programs.
Eligibility for Fund assistance is limited to pre-college students and is based on the public school free and reduced lunch program models. Applicants must prove eligibility based on a financial aid form and the previous years' tax forms. Please call the Community Division office to request the Tuition Aid application, or submit a request for an application online.
The individual awards are determined on a 'sliding scale,' with the maximum amount equivalent to the cost of a 1/2 hour private lesson. Special consideration is given to our neighbors in North Hartford and the schools of Educational Main Street, a program that collaborates with schools adjacent to the University of Hartford. However, financial assistance students can come from any town or city. The Fund for Access's goal for the coming year is to double the number of available scholarships. This is an ambitious goal, but one we feel is very important in our mission as a community arts school.
Please consider making a tax-deductible donation to the Fund for Access to help us reach that goal. If each of us makes a contribution, we can make a huge difference in the lives of students who long to participate in the Community Division's outstanding programs but need financial assistance to do so.
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Endangered Instrument Scholarships
Endangered Instrument Scholarships were designed to promote the study of specific instruments needed in each of our large ensembles. One-time scholarships, in the amount of $150, will be offered to pre-college students who would like to take lessons on the following instruments: oboe, bassoon, tuba, viola, double bass and percussion. In order to receive this scholarship, students must also audition for, and take part in, one of our large ensemble programs on that instrument (CYS, GHYWE, Concert Ensemble, Vivace, or Opus 89).
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