The Hill News

This spring, thousands of high-school seniors will proudly count themselves among the graduating class of 2011. For many students, whether from big cities or small towns, like mine in Nebraska, the possibilities seem endless.

But they also face the very adult reality of affording a college education. As higher education costs skyrocket across the country, a generation of young Americans will cobble together family and personal savings, financial aid and decades of debt in order to prepare themselves for an increasingly competitive global economy.

My saving grace? The Miss America Scholarship Program. Yes, you read that correctly. Beyond the glitz and glitter of the stage, as it reads on its website: “The Miss America Organization is one of the nation's leading achievement programs and the world's largest provider of scholarship assistance for young women. Last year, the Miss America Organization and its state and local organizations made availabl! e more than $45 million in cash and scholarship assistance. This assistance is not just for the handful of young women who become Miss America, but is available to the over 12,000 young women who compete in the state and local competitions as well.”

In fact, every girl who competes walks away with a scholarship, making winners out of us all.

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