You may not hear a lot about the Honda Campus All-Star Challenge, but the annual event has been going strong for more than 25 years. In that time, it has awarded more than $8 million in grants to HBCU students.
The car company established the challenge in an attempt to highlight the academic talents of those who attend historically Black colleges and universities. It’s also been done to help support these institutions of higher learning through monetary support via grants. This money covers tuition, scholarships, the cost of books, student programs and improvements to campus facilities.
Sounds great, right? Well, what exactly is the Honda Campus All-Star Challenge? It’s a competition where representatives from 89 schools that turned into 48 and will slim down to the final four test their knowledge, via beat-the-buzzer questions, on everything from world history and science to religion, literature, pop culture and the arts. And while all the schools that participate in the challenge are awarded grants, the teams that take home third and fourth place will be given $20,000. The team that gets second place will be given $30,000. The big winner will be given a $75,000 institutional grant.
But one of the greatest benefits of the challenge, aside from money, is the connections made by participating students. There are more than 125,000 former contestants now known as HCASC alumni, and many are successful in a variety of fields, including engineering, law, medicine and education. Some, who have made outstanding strides in their respective fields, are inducted into the HCASC Alumni Hall of Fame. Many of these same individuals become mentors to current competitors at the annual event.
Last year’s winner was Florida A&M. Who will take home the title this time around? You can support these schools and their students by tuning in to the HCASC National Championship Finals. The competition which will take place on Monday, April 10 at 12 p.m. EDT and will be streaming on HCASC.com, live streaming from the Honda campus in Torrance, California. You can also check out the competition through Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.
Image via Honda
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