Washington State Opportunity Scholarship program helping thousands of college students



SEATTLE -- By any measure, the Washington State Opportunity Scholarship program is doing impressive work helping thousands of kids pay for college. It’s the only non-profit of it's kind in the country.

“A public-private partnership where private dollars are matched by the state to help people go to college in high demand fields,” said Brad Smith, who serves as Microsoft president and chief legal counsel as well as board chairman of the Washington State Opportunity Scholarship Program.

At a dinner at Osteria Rigoletto in South Lake Union, Smith talked about the passion he has to help students study science, technology, engineering and math.

"One of the great things about this program is it's for lower- and middle-income students. Over half of the scholarships go to people each year who are the first in their family to go to college,” said Smith.

One of those recipients almost died during her freshman year at WSU.  Silvia Muro-Escalante was driving to Pullman from Arlington when her car hit black ice. She was seriously injured, had short-term memory loss and faced a difficult recovery.

She’s back in school now at WSU, studying to be a nurse and credits WSOS with keeping her motivated.

"They were there at one of the lowest points of my life and they motivated me to keep moving. They believed in me when I didn't believe in myself,” said Muro-Escalante.

She was one of a dozen scholars who mingled with Jim Sinegal, co-founder of Costco Wholesale and Diane Cecchettini, retired CEO of MultiCare Health System, and Kathy Surace-Smith, VP and general counsel of NanoString Technologies.

More than 5,500 Washington students have received scholarships but thanks to donors like Gray Rubens who gifted the program with $20 million,   another 1,500 will get letters of acceptance this May.

“The thought that a student who qualifies would get what I call a ‘No’ letter because there wasn’t enough money just hurts me. I wanted to make sure there was enough money to help all of these kids,” said Rubens, whose gift will mean more low-income, first-generation high school grads can go to college.