Cornell Club of Oregon Scholarship supports any student with need

The Cornell Club of Oregon and Southwest Washington (CCORSW) established a scholarship in 1980 to help students from Oregon meet the costs of higher education. Over the past 43 years, the CCORSW scholarship has grown to a market value of $3 million, the largest endowment of any Cornell Club in the country. The payout from the endowment exceeds $100,000 annually—enough to provide scholarships for all Cornell students from Oregon who have unmet need.

The scholarship fund was started by Mort Bishop ’74, a fifth-generation Oregonian whose family owns the Pendleton Woolen Mills. As the fund has grown, so has the level of support offered to Oregon-Southwest Washington students. Today, the CCORSW scholarship replaces work-study contributions and loans for recipients. This means that students who receive the scholarship can graduate from Cornell debt-free.

Austin Heiman '11 says that the CCORSW scholarship he received allowed him to graduate from Cornell without any loan obligations.

“During my lifetime, I’d like to give back ten times what I took out of the system,” Austin says. “I want to start contributing to the Cornell Club of Oregon scholarship to make sure that, you know, other folks are able to have that same opportunity that I had.”