Empowering the Next Generation of Creative Leaders
Over 150 years, the College of Architecture, Art, and Planning at Cornell University has built a solid foundation as a global leader in our creative and applied disciplines. Our work has never been more essential to how we build a more sustainable, just, and resilient world. In the face of major global concerns, our responsibility to meet the challenges of the next century and prepare future generations to be leaders and innovators of the built environment, creative economy, and civil society couldn’t be more pressing or relevant.
The support of our alumni, parents, and friends will ensure that the most talented students from all socioeconomic backgrounds are fully equipped to lead, thrive, and tackle their generation’s greatest challenges.
Why Scholarships Matter at AAP
AAP’s 979 students come from all corners of the world, representing 59 countries and 43 states. With backgrounds as athletes, human rights activists, researchers, volunteers, and leaders of every kind, this diverse body brings unique perspectives and experiences that advance discourse and encourage exploration.
However, for many students, the cost to attend AAP is prohibitive. In addition, the college must stay competitive to draw top talent. Harvard, Yale, Columbia, MIT, Stanford, and other peers have greater resources to compete for the best students. For many of these prospective students, financial support is a deciding factor in the choice between our college and a peer institution. Further, our student community thrives academically and personally when students have the freedom to explore fully, to take on new challenges and opportunities, and to broaden their perspectives. A more affordable education enables them to pursue international study, research, fellowships, and career development, and to consider graduate and professional degrees and community engagement opportunities.
Gifts toward scholarships would enable the college to fully support our students’ varied set of needs and would also reduce the debt burden upon graduation, leaving all possible career choices open for students to empower their creative contributions and professional impact.
How You Can Make An Impact
Current-Use Scholarship Gifts
Current-use scholarship commitments make an immediate impact on our ability to attract and admit the most promising students. In an era of economic uncertainties, donors can make an impact on AAP students through gifts of $25,000, or $5,000 per year for five years, to the AAP Undergraduate Scholarship Fund or to the AAP Graduate Fellowship Fund.
Endowed Scholarship Gifts
Endowed scholarships are an effective way of ensuring access for our students, now and in the future. Scholarships designated to AAP — through a gift of $100,000 or higher (payable over five years) — would create a permanent fund that generates enough income to award a scholarship to a student every year in perpetuity. Through AAP’s Affordability Initiative, a donor with an existing scholarship in AAP has the option to enhance their fund through a gift of $25,000 or more (payable over five years).
Please reach out to aapalum@cornell.edu if you are interested in supporting Cornell AAP’s Affordability Initiative or would like more information about endowed scholarships.
Tuition / Aid At A Glance
- 44% — Undergraduate students at AAP who receive need-based grant aid
- $55.3K — Average scholarship and grant award for a first-year student at Cornell
- $11M — Undergraduate aid covered by AAP operations (17% of college budget)
- $22.2K — Average graduate aid per student at AAP (all programs)
- $5.5M — Graduate aid covered by AAP operations (9% of college budget)
Student Reflections
Nadiya Farrington (B.Arch. ’23), Department of Architecture
“I’d like to say thank you to all alumni who are able to donate and provide scholarships for students like myself because it creates so many wonderful opportunities to study and grow as an individual.”
Emily Hernandez (B.F.A. ’25), Department of Art
“I do receive financial aid from Cornell and it was one of the most important factors, if not the leading factor, on where I’d be going to college and what I could do … having that financial support really helped me.”
Najeh Abduljalil (B.S. URS ’25), Department of City and Regional Planning
“AAP allowed me the freedom to explore my interests and my passions. I’d like to say thank you to alumni for providing resources and the space I needed to get my research group off the ground.” Please reach out to aapalum@cornell.edu if you are interested in supporting Cornell AAP’s Affordability Initiative or would like more information about endowed scholarships.