RIDGWAY — Ridgway Area High School senior Cole Luchs was recognized recently for his achievement regarding the Raise.me student scholarship program.

Luchs and Assistant Superintendent Heather McMahon-Vargas recently spoke about Ridgway’s experience with Raise.me at an educational forum in State College hosted by U.S. Rep. Glenn Thompson, R-Pa.

Raise.me is a program in which high school students can earn micro-scholarships to participating colleges for achievements such as solid grades, enrollment in difficult course work and involvement in extracurricular and community service activities. Ridgway Area High School recently became one of more than 18,000 highs schools across the country that have signed up for Raise.me.

At the forum, Luchs spoke about the portfolio he entered into the Raise.me program, which has resulted in an accumulation of more than $40,000 of available scholarship money toward college. McMahon-Vargas delivered remarks that praised the program for providing incentives to students to pursue higher education options.

Brice Benson, Ridgway Area High School principal, said he is pleased with how the program helps students prepare for college.

“Raise.me is designed to create real time incentives for students to see that what they do now in school does have a considerable impact in the amount of scholarship aid available to them toward college tuition,” said Benson. “The individual student account can be set up from the start of grade 9 and remains active through the middle of the 12th grade year. At that time, if a student is accepted to a college participating in the program, the scholarship monies earned via the raise.me account are automatically included in the financial aid package presented to the student upon admission. Raise.me automatically will award scholarship monies as the students are earning them. In other words, this program can influence young people to pursue higher education who otherwise see a tuition sticker price that seems like a major barrier,” said Benson.