Scholarships to Enter Catholic High Schools in New York

According to the Inner City Scholarship Fund, which works closely with the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of New York, 60 percent of the students enrolled in many of its inner-city schools are from families living below the poverty line. In the state of New York, several scholarship funds have been set up to enable these low-income families to send their children to Catholic high schools.

The New York State Council, Knights of Columbus offers scholarships and grants to students entering a Catholic high school anywhere in New York state. To qualify, students must first be accepted to one of the schools and be either a child or grandchild or legal ward of a Knight of Columbus whose membership is in good standing at the time of application.

Sixty percent of the students enrolled in 103 designated inner-city elementary and secondary schools in the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of New York come from families who are living below the poverty line, according to the Inner-City Scholarship Fund. This organization works with the Archdiocese in providing scholarships and grants to needy students who wish to attend these Catholic schools. Scholarships and grants are offered from a variety of funds that the organization operates, including an emergency tuition-assistance program.

The Catholic Daughters of the Americas (CDA), which claims to be one of the largest organizations of Catholic women in North and South America, offers several scholarships to enable students to attend a Catholic high school, including the National Court's annual $500 grants. It is not necessary to be a CDA member, or a relative of one, to apply for a scholarship.

The Children's Scholarship Fund helps low-income families send their children to private schools, including Catholic schools. While the program's primary aim is to assist families with children in grades K through 8, the New York branch has provisions that allow scholarship money to be used for high school. For example, high school scholarships are only available to families who are already using the program to send their children to private grammar schools.