Membership Services
Donation keeps students flying
AOPA President Phil Boyer (right) presents check for scholarship fund to ERAU President Dr. John Johnson
AOPA President Phil Boyer presented a $30,000 check to Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University (ERAU) Oct. 9 for the AOPA Career Pathways Scholarship fund. This marks the tenth year of an alliance between the world’s largest aviation organization and one of the world's leading aviation universities.
At a meeting of the President’s Advisory Board, a panel Boyer has served on since its inception, the AOPA president interrupted a presentation by ERAU President Dr. John Johnson, stating “This is certainly an appropriate time to make this presentation.” Boyer made the comment after learning that some 300 ERAU students haven’t been able to get student loans because of the current national economic crisis. “AOPA is proud to have partnered with ERAU for all of these years and to have helped many worthy students further their aviation studies.”
The scholarship contribution is a small part of an overall relationship between the two organizations. Every active ERAU aviation student and some 50 faculty members are AOPA members.
Each year, the association contributes 10 percent of the AOPA member dues paid by ERAU alumni to the university's endowed scholarship fund. Since 1999, AOPA has donated more than $206,000 to help deserving aviation students fund their education.
Since the AOPA-ERAU relationship began ten years ago, the number of ERAU alumni who maintain active AOPA membership has almost doubled to 6,878.
October 16, 2008
