Colby has a wide range of grant funds and programs to ensure broad access regardless of a student's ability to pay. All of the College’s several hundred grant funds are awarded on the basis of need, and a number of these funds ensure access for students from diverse backgrounds; for example, students from low or middle income families, first-generation college, international, oppressed or persecuted, orphans, and other under-represented groups.
Each year Oak Scholars come to Colby from Zimbabwe, Denmark, or any country where their families have suffered political torture or persecution. The Oak Foundation also sponsors programs to promote interaction among international and American students, and it created the Oak Institute for the Study of International Human Rights, which brings a human rights practitioner to Colby for one semester each year.
The United World Colleges are 12 secondary schools around the world that enroll students from more than 80 countries. In 2000 the Shelby Davis family established a scholarship program that brings scores of UWC graduates from all around the world to Colby.
Ralph J. Bunche was a Nobel Peace Prize laureate, a distinguished statesman and diplomat, and a champion of world peace. The first African-American undersecretary of the United Nations, he received an honorary doctorate from Colby in 1952 and later was a Colby parent. In 1979 Colby established the Ralph J. Bunche Scholarship program to recognize students who demonstrate scholastic strength and leadership potential and who are African American, Latino/Latina, Asian American, or Native American.
In 2002 Colby partnered with the Posse Foundation to recruit academically qualified, multicultural groups of students from New York City schools. Colby is one of more than a dozen colleges and universities working with Posse to increase racial, ethnic, and socioeconomic diversity and intercultural interaction on campuses.
