Scholarships

ACT or SAT Scholarships

Recipients of this award receive full or half tuition remission (up to 18 credit hours per semester), renewable for a total of four consecutive semesters. 

Eligibility Criteria

• Recipients must be a graduating high school senior or recent GED graduate.
• Recipients must be graduating from a U.S. high school.
• Applicants must request an official transcript to be sent directly from their high school or Department of Education to the Admissions Office
• Applicants must provide their ACT or SAT scores to the Admissions Office no later than one week before the first semester begins. Scores must be sent directly from ACT, The College Board, or from the school counselor
• Recipients must maintain a 3.0 GPA or higher and complete 67 percent of the credits attempted each year.

Early Admission Scholarship
The Early Admission Scholarship is awarded students who have excelled academically at the high school or GED level. This scholarship is awarded for two consecutive years.

Award Amount:

Presidential Scholarship
$1,000 per year
High School GPA of 3.70 - 4.00 or GED score of 700 - 800

Dean's Scholarship
$750 per year
High School GPA of 3.40 - 3.69 or GED score of 660 - 699

Blue & Gold Scholarship
$500 per year
High School GPA of 3.00 - 3.39 or GED score of 560 - 659

All awards are equally divided between two semesters.

Recipients must:

• Recipients must be a graduating high school senior or recent GED graduate
• Recipients must be graduating from a U.S. high school
• Applicants must request an official transcript to be sent directly from their high school or Department of Education to the Admissions Office
• Applicants must complete and submit the WNCC Admissions Application online at wncc.edu. There is no application fee.
• Recipients must enroll in 12 or more credits per semester
• Recipients must maintain a 2.7 cumulative GPA or higher and complete 67 percent of the credits attempted each year

To be considered for an Early Admissions Scholarship, transcripts must be submitted to the Admissions Office at WNCC by April 1 for a fall semester start and November 15 for a spring semester start.

Through the WNCC Foundation many general, need-based, program-specific, and merit-based scholarships are available for WNCC students.

See all of the scholarship options here.

The Children of State Teammate Tuition Reimbursement Program will provide tuition assistance to dependents of state teammates attending any of Nebraska’s community colleges. Learn more.

Western Nebraska Community College is proud to partner with the State of Nebraska in supporting Nebraska law enforcement officers, firefighters/firefighter-paramedics, and their legal dependents who are completing their associate degrees. Beginning September 2, 2023, under the First Responder Recruitment and Retention Act, law enforcement officers, professional firefighters, and their legal dependents may be eligible for a waiver of 100% of their resident tuition charges (after federal and/or state grants and scholarships). The waiver is available for a period of up to five years.

Eligibility:

A law enforcement officer, for the purposes of this program, is defined as any person who is responsible for the prevention or detection of crime or the enforcement of the penal, traffic, or highway laws of the State of Nebraska or any political subdivision of the state for more than 100 hours per year and who is authorized by law to make arrests.

A professional firefighter, for the purposes of this program, is defined as a firefighter or firefighter-paramedic who is a member of a paid fire department of a municipality or a rural or suburban fire protection district in this state, including a municipality having a home rule charter or a municipal authority created pursuant to a home rule charter that has its own paid fire department, and for whom firefighting is a full-time career.

A legal dependent, for the purposes of this program, is one who is determined to be a dependent student under the dependency status guidelines of the Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA®) and has at least one parent who qualifies as a law enforcement officer or professional firefighter in the State of Nebraska.

Application Process:

• Complete the application form to determine eligibility. 
• Provide a signed copy of Page 2 of the Department of Revenue First Responder Certificate of Verification & authorization for Release of Information (FRVA) form.
• Provide a signed Verification of Satisfactory Performance Certification from the First Responder’s supervisor (included in the application).
• Be properly admitted to Western Nebraska Community College
• Enroll in an eligible Associate program. Qualifying dependents may enroll in any Associate program. First Responders must enroll in an approved program relating to their career. Eligible programs are listed on the application. First Responders interested in an Associate program that is not listed as eligible may appeal to the Executive Vice President of Educational & Student Services by completing the “Program Appeal” section in the application. 
• Have filed a Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA®). (WNCC School Code: 002560)
• Complete the application process including providing supporting signatures and documentation each academic year a tuition waiver is requested.
• Dependent students agree to maintain Nebraska residency and file state tax returns for five years following use of tuition waiver or repay the tuition waiver to WNCC. 

NOTE: The rules and regulations governing the First Responder Recruitment and Retention Tuition Waiver are subject to change with little or no notice in response to Nebraska law. Submitting the application does not make you eligible for a tuition waiver under the Act. Criteria for eligibility will be determined by Western Nebraska Community College in accordance with State of Nebraska law.

Western Nebraska Community College, in collaboration with the Nebraska Department of Economic Development, is offering scholarships to first-time and transfer students pursuing degrees in programs of study leading to high wage, high skill, and high demand careers. Learn more. 

Check back March 2025!

We’ve compiled a list of outside scholarships available to WNCC students.

The STEM Career Opportunities in Nebraska: Networks, Experiential-learning, and Computational Thinking (STEM CONNECT) is an NSF-funded STEM (Scholarships in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics) scholarship program forming a partnership among the University of Nebraska-Lincoln (UNL), Western Nebraska Community College and Southeast Community College (SCC).

STEM CONNECT awards scholarships to and provides curricular and co-curricular support to academically talented, low-income students with interest in careers that require strong skills in mathematics or computer science.

Learn more about the STEM CONNECT Scholarship!