13th Year Promise Scholarships – Legacy Schools Grant

The 13th Year Promise Scholarship was conceived at a South Seattle College Foundation Board retreat in December 2006. The program enrolled its first students from Cleveland High School in Fall Quarter, 2008. In 2011, Chief Sealth International High School was added, followed by Rainier Beach High School in 2014. West Seattle High School was added in 2018. These four area high schools are now known as our “Legacy Schools.”

Educational and political leaders were inspired by South’s 13th Year Promise Scholarship and wanted to expand it city-wide. The Seattle Promise program is jointly managed by the city of Seattle, Seattle Colleges, and Seattle Public Schools. These organizations are supported by Seattle’s Levy Oversight Committee. The Seattle Promise provides ALL graduating seniors from a Seattle public high school with up to two years (or 90 credits) of FREE in-state tuition and support services at Seattle Colleges: South, Central, and North.

Seattle Promise students from our four Legacy Schools who are attending South Seattle College are eligible for a stipend up to $200 a quarter for books and/or supplies. This grant program is reviewed and updated annually by the SSCF Board of Directors.

For further information regarding the Legacy Schools Grant, please contact promise@seattlecolleges.edu.

You can also apply to the Seattle Promise by going to this link: https://southseattle.edu/seattle-promise

13th Year Promise – The Key People Who Made It Happen

Below is a partial list of the major organizations and individuals that supported the 13^th Year Program through donations that exceeded $50,000. These donations went into the 13^th Year Endowment Fund or were intended to be used as annual grants to first-year students from the four SSC legacy high schools.

The entire City of Seattle owes a debt of gratitude to the SSCF Board and the donors to the 13^th Year Program because this program was used as the role model for the new Seattle Promise scholarship program that has now been instigated city-wide.

We humbly thank these major donors and the many who wish to remain anonymous. They were in the vanguard of community leaders who clearly saw the benefit of making local colleges attractive to high school students by covering their first-year tuition. It was the “Promise” that encouraged many students to take that next step of higher education.

Significant Donors 2007 – present

Marjorie and Michael D. Alhadeff

Boeing Employees Credit Union

College Spark Washington Foundation

Steve and Shari Elsoe

Folley Family Foundation

Randy and Laura Halter

Steven and Sharon Huling

Loeb Family Charitable Foundation