College Access

The St. Louis Impact Fund supports student-led, mutually beneficial partnerships with St. Louis-area nonprofit and civic organizations. Through grants for new projects and expanded collaborations, the fund helps students and community partners co-design initiatives that address regional priorities and community-identified needs. Community partners help shape project goals and activities, ensuring their knowledge and priorities guide the work while strengthening long-term relationships between WashU and the St. Louis region.

The Frick Initiatives invest in ambitious ideas and the people working to put them into practice. They support projects centered on four core pillars: civil discourse, free speech, free and open markets, and personal responsibility. They seek promising projects that move ideas beyond discussion and into practice, whether through education, applied research, public engagement, community partnerships or new approaches not yet imagined.

In this program offered by the Harvey A. Friedman Center for Aging at WashU Brown School, local students learn about three neurological conditions and diseases that often interplay with the aging process — stroke, Parkinson’s disease, and dementia. Students are matched with a faculty mentor and will spend eight weeks as part of their lab or center.

To connect with communities locally and globally, the Brown School created Open Classroom – a series of free, one-hour webinars on a wide range of social work, public health, and social policy topics. The Open Classroom library now includes more than 250 programs, with new webinars offered every month.

The ASSURE fellowship at WashU Medicine provides college students from the St. Louis metro area an opportunity to engage in basic, clinical, and/or translational research projects. Candidates without prior research experience are particularly encouraged to apply.

“Architecture for Non-Architects” is designed for WashU undergraduates who are not enrolled in a traditional architecture studio. The course introduces students to the processes architects use to think about, view, and produce the built environment.

The Sever Institute at the McKelvey School of Engineering at WashU offers traditional and alternative courses for working professionals. It builds on experience to provide technical and leadership skills to St. Louis residents at their own pace.

This joint UMSL and WashU program provides a flexible engineering program for those in the St. Louis community. Students take pre engineering courses through UMSL and take the upper level engineering courses and labs at WashU in the evenings. The program offers three different types of accredited bachelor of engineering degrees: Civil Engineering, Electrical Engineering and Mechanical Engineering. Students are able to pay the more affordable UMSL fees while benefitting from both schools.

The Washington University Prison Education Project (PEP) offers a college education to incarcerated students at the Missouri Eastern Correctional Center (MECC) in Pacific, Missouri, and the Women’s Eastern Reception, Diagnostic and Correctional Center (WERDCC) in Vandalia, Missouri.

CAPS, previously University College, offers adult students the opportunity to earn a degree at WashU. The program is committed to providing an education and career pathway for St. Louis learners who have previously not had access to Washington University in St. Louis.