SAGE Secure® Accidental Death Scholarship
SAGE Scholars Educational Foundation has created SAGE Secure, the first no-cost accidental death benefit for the family of students enrolled in one of the over 455 SAGE Scholars member colleges and universities nationwide.
SAGE Secure is designed to help prevent the student from suffering financially and possibly dropping out of school if his or her family’s primary wage earner dies from an accidental bodily injury.
“We recognize the devastating impact the sudden death of a student’s parent or the main source of support has on the family’s financial health and specifically the ongoing ability to afford and attend college,” says Dr. James B. Johnston, founder/chairman of SAGE Scholars, the parent organization.
“This is why we are committed to providing financial assistance that eases the grieving process for our member students during this incredibly difficult time,” he adds.
According to Dr. Johnston the amount of the SAGE Secure Scholarship will be $5,000 or the “expected family contribution, whichever is the lesser.”
Bob Bartlett, president of the Michigan Colleges Alliance, commented, “for a quarter century, SAGE Scholars has been a forerunner of affordability and student access in private higher education. The SAGE Secure program is another example of SAGE ingenuity and leadership at a time of unprecedented need in college financing.”
Here’s how SAGE Secure works:
The SAGE Scholars Educational Foundation will award a SAGE Secure Scholarship in the event of the death resulting from an accidental bodily injury of a qualifying student’s sponsor under certain conditions.
- The SAGE Secure Scholarship aids registered SAGE Scholar students attending a SAGE Scholars member college or university at the time of the accidental death of the qualifying sponsor.
- To qualify for this aid, the deceased sponsor must be a member of your household at the time of death and must be the main source of the student's financial support.
- The amount of the SAGE Secure Scholarship will be $5,000 or the Expected Family Contribution (EFC), whichever is the lesser as determined during the first year following the death of the qualifying sponsor.
- The SAGE Secure Scholarship will be awarded only when the sponsor’s death results from an accidental bodily injury.
- The bodily injury must be the sole cause of death and death must occur within 90 days after the date of the accidental injury.
- The bodily injury must be evidenced by a visible contusion or wound, except in the case of accidental drowning.
- Application for a SAGE Scholars Educational Foundation’s Accidental Death Scholarship, SAGE Secure, must be accompanied by a valid certificate of death, the revised EFC as determined by FAFSA, and be made within 30 days of receipt of the revised EFC.
- Application must also provide written proof satisfactory to SAGE Scholars that death occurred as a result of an accidental injury.
- Payment of the SAGE Secure Scholarship will be made within 25 days after receipt of due written proof satisfactory to us that an accidental injury was sustained resulting in death.
In no event will a SAGE Secure Scholarship be awarded where death is caused by any of the following:
- Self-inflicted injury, whether sane or insane;
- Suicide or attempted suicide, whether sane or insane;
- Participation in or an attempt to commit an assault or felony;
- Bodily or mental infirmity, illness or disease;
- The voluntary use of any controlled substance as defined by Title II of the Comprehensive Drug Abuse Prevention and Control Act of 1970, as now or hereafter amended, unless prescribed by a physician;
- Infection, other than an infection occurring as a direct result of the accidental injury;
- Medical or surgical treatment or diagnostic procedures or any resulting complications;
- Travel in or descent from any aircraft, except as a fare-paying passenger on a regularly scheduled commercial flight on a licensed passenger aircraft carrier;
- War or any act of war, whether declared or undeclared;
- Repetitive stress syndromes including but not limited to rotator cuff syndrome, bursitis, tendonitis, carpal tunnel syndrome, ulnar nerve syndrome, stress fractures, neuropathy, epicondylitis or neuritis.
