Students are more than our first priority—they are the reason we exist. To attract and retain the smartest and most promising candidates, Rensselaer must have the financial resources to compete with other top-tier universities, including those able to meet the full financial need of students. Increasing access and enhancing the student experience requires us to bridge the gap in available financial aid.
We recognize that bright young men and women come from diverse ethnic, cultural, and socio-economic backgrounds the world over. Attracting these talented applicants, regardless of financial need, is integral to creating a richer and more rewarding educational experience. Scholarships create life-changing opportunities for deserving students to focus on their education with all the energy and attention such a transformative endeavor deserves.
We educate our students to be intellectually agile, multiculturally sophisticated, and globally focused, and prepare them to confidently address the challenges and opportunities of the 21st century. Scholarships alleviate the constraints of excessive debt, empowering our graduates to take risks and pursue dreams that have the potential to reward us all. Help our students change the world.
Ways to support students at Rensselaer
The Rensselaer Annual Fund
The Rensselaer Annual Fund helps to provide a world-class educational experience to our students, helping to prepare them to meet the demands and challenges of the 21st century.
Undergraduate Student Relief Fund
The Student Relief Fund is an emergency fund for Rensselaer students who face financial hardship that threatens their academic progress during their time at Rensselaer.
Graduate Student Relief Fund
The Graduate Student Relief Fund is an emergency fund for Rensselaer graduate students who face financial hardship that threatens their academic progress during their time at Rensselaer.
Fraternities and Sororities
Opportunities to support fraternities and sororities at Rensselaer.
Let’s Go Red
Your support of Let’s Go Red! funds ensures that current and future generations of students continue to receive the opportunity to balance the rigors of academics with collegiate athletics.
Rensselaer Student Success Initiatives
Helps to ensure our students possess the intellectual agility, multicultural sophistication, and global view requisite to successfully addressing the world’s many challenges and opportunities.
Scholarship
One of the most personal and lasting ways to make a difference in the lives of Rensselaer students is with a gift of scholarship support.
Bridge Scholars Program Fund
For more than 30 years, the Bridge Scholars Program has allowed entering students to participate in rigorous academic instruction and to develop the skills necessary for academic and personal success at Rensselaer.
O.T. Swanson Multidisciplinary Design Lab
The O.T. Swanson Multidisciplinary Design Lab provides senior engineering students opportunities to apply their discipline-specific knowledge to address real-world challenges presented by external sponsors.
Humanities, Arts, and Social Sciences (HASS) Private Music Lessons Fund
The Humanities, Arts, and Social Science (HASS) Private Music Lessons Fund assists Rensselaer students in covering the cost of private music lessons in the School of Humanities, Arts and Social Sciences (HASS).
Senior Class Giving
Giving back is a time-honored tradition at Rensselaer, culminating in the class gift during senior year.
Memorial and Tribute Scholarship Fund
Honor the memory of a loved one or commemorate a special occasion through a gift to the Rensselaer Memorial and Tribute Scholarship Fund.
Class of 1957 Spectrum Award
The Class of 1957 Spectrum Award was created in 2017 in honor of the Class of 1957’s 60th Reunion.
The Mark D. Smith – Magistra Vitae (“Life Teacher”) Student Scholarship Fund
This annual scholarship fund was established in memory of Mark, and in recognition of his long-standing service to students by promoting and supporting both academic excellence and personal development through his expertise, wisdom, and empathy.
The Endowment
Gifts to the Rensselaer endowment secure the university’s future in the long term, and in the more immediate future, speed us toward full implementation of The Rensselaer Plan 2024.
Academics and Research
Under The Rensselaer Plan, research was invigorated by taking risks to achieve impact and moving into new domains of significance at the intersections of important disciplines.
Student Experience
As Rensselaer prepares to enter its third century, and it remains true to its mission of “applying science to the common purposes of life.” Becoming a fully-realized technological research institute is paramount as Rensselaer continues to pose the question “why not change the world?”
Support for the ASCE Student Chapter
The ASCE Chapter supports student professional development by hosting meetings with local professionals, and participation in three national competitions: ASCE/AISC Steel Bridge, ASCE Concrete Canoe, and ASCE Geowall.