The 2009 Bipolar Lives Scholarship

In 2008 I created a new page for my Bipolar Lives website about scholarships for people have bipolar disorder. Guess what? I couldn't find any! Well, actually I did find a couple, but not very many, and so the Bipolar Lives Scholarship was born.

To me this seemed like an important way to try and support the bipolar community. Many people with bipolar fall victim to what is called "downward drift" - a systemic pattern of under achieving, despite being gifted. I hope that by providing a cash award I can encourage people with bipolar diosorder to persist with higher education.

Another benefit is that the award encourages reflection, research and creativity. It is awarded solely on merit to the applicant who most eloquently conveys information about bipolar disorder (actually I prefer the term "manic depression") to the general public.

Some drug companies (yep - big pharma is not entirely evil) offer scholarships.

Also, the National Alliance for the Mentally Ill (NAMI) list some on their website. However, NAMI's main advice is to contact folks like Fastweb: Need money for college? Use FastWeb's free scholarship search to find information on more than 1.3 Million scholarships!

The first winner will be announced on July 1st 2009. The winning entry will be published here.

Also, the details of the 2010 Bipolar Lives Scholarship will be released. The good news is that the award is increasing from $500 cash in 2009 to $750 cash in 2010.

Stay tuned and check back on 7/1/09. Thanks for your support, Sarah