Will assist women, persons of color as well as veterans; Yavapai Community College does not have similar scholarships for its aviation program
Boeing announced March 7, 2019 that it plans to establish a $3 million permanent endowment for scholarships at Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University to assist students interested in pursuing a pilot’s license and certificates in aviation maintenance.
The scholarships are intended to assist underrepresented populations including women and persons of color as well as veterans. The $3 million award builds upon Boeing’s long-standing support of STEM programs, women, military veterans and minorities.
The Boeing scholarships at Embry-Riddle will seek to increase the number of underrepresented populations in the pilot workforce, particularly women and persons of color as well as veterans.
Of the 609,306 pilots certificated by the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration’s Aeronautical Center in 2017, only about 7 percent, or 42,694, are women, according to Women in Aviation International. Statistics on other underrepresented groups in aviation are limited, but a 2014 report suggested that 2.7 percent of U.S. airline transport pilots were people of color, 2.5 percent were of Asian heritage, and 5 percent were Hispanic or Latino.