The Truman Scholarship Grant

The Truman Scholarship, established by the Truman Foundation, supports college juniors committed to public service. It offers up to $30,000 for graduate studies, alongside mentoring and career development opportunities. Ideal candidates demonstrate leadership, a strong commitment to public service, and the potential for success in graduate school. This prestigious award aims to cultivate future leaders dedicated to making a positive impact in their communities and beyond.

The Truman Foundation
The Truman Foundation is the nation’s official living memorial to our thirty-third president and the presidential monument to public service.
Created by Congress in 1975, the Foundation was President Truman’s idea. A pragmatic Midwesterner who did not attend college, President Truman did not want a brick-and-mortar monument. Instead, he encouraged a living memorial that would give life to the values of service that animated his career. In that spirit, the Truman Foundation supports Americans answering the call to serve.
The Truman Foundation identifies aspiring leaders at an important inflection point in their development – when they are college juniors – and recognize and reward their commitments to careers in public service.
In pursuit of this mission and vision, we award the Truman Scholarship, the premier graduate fellowship in the United States for those pursuing careers as public service leaders, in addition to programs across the course of Truman Scholars' careers.
The Truman Scholarship is meant to celebrate and prepare the nation's next generation of public service leaders. Scholars receive up to $30,000 for graduate school as well as access to extensive Scholar programming, priority admission and financial support from public service graduate programs, advising and mentoring from other public service leaders, and preferred hiring with the federal government.
The ideal candidate will demonstrate:
Leadership: We consider leadership to be more than merely occupying a position of leadership. Truman Scholars either use their leadership position in unique ways or create opportunities for leadership where none existed.
Commitment to a Career in Public Service: Truman Scholars have a lengthy record of service as well as detailed and ambitious plans for a future career as a leader in their area of interest.
Likelihood of Success in Graduate School: We are less interested in a perfect academic record than we are in seeing a Truman Scholar who is intellectually curious and on track to succeed in their graduate program of choice.

Eligibility

Candidates must be:US Citizens, US National residents of American Samoa, or expecting their citizenship by the date of the award;Currently enrolled at a US-based accredited institution;In their penultimate year of school (for candidates graduating in four years or more) or in their final year of school (for candidates graduating in three years or fewer);Nominated by either their current institution of study or their former institution of study for transfer or community college applicants. Schools are limited to four nominees plus three additional transfer nominations; and,Planning to attend graduate school in pursuit of a career in public service. The Foundation encourages time between undergraduate and graduate school, so candidates need not commit to going immediately.
Candidates can be:
pursuing any major likely to lead to a public service career;any age;interested in any graduate degree other than the MBA; and,considering either domestic or international programs for their graduate education.