Texas A&M System Receives $1 Million Grant To Restore College Dreams For Harvey Victims

More than 500 students attending five Texas A&M System campuses withdrew from school and did not return after Hurricane Harvey swamped the Texas coast in 2017.

A $1 million grant from the State of Qatar via the Qatar Harvey Fund will now help to support those aspiring scholars with a revamped safety net and money to help cover their tuition, fees, books, living expenses and even emergency expenses at Texas A&M University, Texas A&M University at Galveston, Prairie View A&M University, Texas A&M University-Corpus Christi and Texas A&M University-Kingsville.

The money will help students whose lives were upended by Hurricane Harvey and who slipped through the existing safety net at each campus.

Funding for the grant was provided by the State of Qatar through its Qatar Harvey Fund, a $30 million fund established in 2017 for the long-term recovery of southeast Texas. The funding will be granted through a partnership between the Qatar Harvey Fund and the Rebuild Texas Fund. The Rebuild Texas Fund, a collaborative project of the Michael & Susan Dell Foundation and the OneStar Foundation, was created to support the rebuilding of Texas communities hit hard by Hurricane Harvey.

The $1 million grant to the Texas A&M System is the fourth scholarship program created by the Qatar Harvey Fund and Rebuild Texas Fund to assist students in southeast Texas. The two funds also jointly established the Qatar Harvey Fund Scholarship Program at Houston Community College, University of Houston System and Lamar University.

“Qatar and Texas have many long-standing ties, including a Texas A&M campus in Qatar that has awarded some 900 engineering degrees over more than a dozen years,” said His Excellency Sheikh Meshal bin Hamad Al-Thani, Qatar’s Ambassador to the U.S. “When we saw the devastation from Hurricane Harvey, we created the Qatar Harvey Fund to help our friends in Texas recover from the storm. We are proud to once again partner with the Rebuild Texas Fund to support Texas students impacted by Hurricane Harvey.”

John Sharp, Chancellor of the Texas A&M System, said the grant will give deserving students a second chance at their college dreams.

“The Texas A&M University System is very thankful for this grant,” Chancellor Sharp said. “This money will help rebuild the future for hundreds of deserving Texans whose dreams of obtaining a degree were rained on by Harvey.”

To be eligible for assistance, a student must be:

• Either a current student impacted by Hurricane Harvey and enrolled in one of the five included A&M System universities;
• Or, be a student who withdrew from one of these universities as a result of Hurricane Harvey and has not yet reenrolled;
• Or, be a student who was admitted to one of these universities beginning in the Fall of 2017 but did not attend because of Harvey. Students must also have had a minimum cumulative grade point average of 2.0 for undergraduate and 3.0 for graduate and doctoral students, if currently enrolled.

The applicant must also be able to demonstrate, with data or anecdotally, the effect of Harvey on their financial situation. The grant money would be available for the Fall 2019 semester.