Scholarship Fund to Cover Cost of AWS Testing
- By Dian Schaffhauser
- 04/12/21
A new initiative in
Arizona will help disadvantaged students in high school and college
take Amazon
AWS certification exams. Under a program being run by
the Arizona
Commerce Authority (ACA), the state's economic
development organization, a $300,000 endowment provided by the Garcia
Family Foundation will cover the cost of the testing
at local testing centers. AWS certification exams cost between $100
and $300, depending on the level of the credential and area of
specialization.
According to the
ACA, there were nearly 80,000 unique job postings in the state in
2020 that required cloud computing, and about 12% specifically
mentioned AWS cloud skills, in an analysis done by economic modeling
company Emsi.
Last year the ACA
worked with AWS and Arizona
Community College Coordinating Council to outfit every
high school, community college and university in the state with
access to "AWS
Academy," including AWS-designed educational
programs with materials, labs and instructional resources. One goal
of the program is to prepare students who complete the courses
through AWS Academy to take and pass the AWS certification exams.
"Since our
announcement in October, nearly all of our community colleges and
universities have signed up to participate in the AWS Academy
program. We are seeing similar interest across the state from our
high school career and technical education districts," said
Sandra Watson, president and CEO of the ACA, in a statement. By fall
of 2021, a large majority of our students will have access to AWS
Cloud skills education, and we're immensely grateful to the Garcia
Family Foundation for helping expand these opportunities to even more
students."
About the Author
Dian Schaffhauser is a former senior contributing editor for 1105 Media's education publications THE Journal, Campus Technology and Spaces4Learning.