The best way to keep students interest in attending local colleges is easy; offer them money.

The Choose Appalachian Teaching (CAT) scholarship program is a part of the Choose Ohio First scholarship program, which is designed to keep students interested in southeastern Ohio.

“Choose Ohio First is a statewide program,” Mary Harmison said. “It contains approximately 20 different scholarship programs, which all promote STEM.”

The CAT scholarship is designed for students interested in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) majors. The scholarship is offered to undergraduate students for two, three or four years. The student must attend one of five locations, Athens Campus of Ohio University, Marietta College, Muskingum University, Shawnee State University or the University of Rio Grande. Each of these scholarships is in the amount of $4,000 per year.

Scholarships for $2,500 per year are available at the five Ohio University regional campuses, Chillicothe, Eastern, Lancaster, Southern and Zanesville.

High school seniors, freshman or sophomore college students, who are interested in teaching mathematics or science to middle or high school students, and young adults are eligible to apply.

Upon completion of the program, a student is required to complete a three-year structured, professional induction program.

The idea is to support the success of the teacher. The induction program is going to assign a mentor to each new graduating teacher. The mentor can be from a number of campuses but will be teaching the same subject, Harmison said.

“The program will help the graduate feel grounded and lead to their being more successful,” Harmison said.

In the past, a recent graduate would be matched up with a mentor but the mentor could be from any teaching department.

The CAT scholarship program is still trying to garner more publicity.

“The program is in its third year,” Harmison said. “The first year we had very few students enroll because it was a new program and it wasn’t publicized very well.”

The early decision deadline is March 1, the regular deadline is June 1.

For more information, contact Harmison at harmisom@ohio.edu. To apply, visit www.cehs.ohio.edu/CAT.