The Home Depot Launches $250,000 Trade School Scholarship Program

The Home Depot Foundation announced recently it is launching the “Path to Pro” scholarship program to help future generations of skilled tradespeople. The program will offer $250,000 in financial aid to high school seniors and high school graduates entering construction training programs.

“Presently, the growing labor shortage in the construction industry has nearly 300,000 career openings offering competitive incomes,” the Foundation’s statement said. “The Path to Pro scholarship program is intentionally designed to help remove financial weight for students entering the skilled trades while preparing them for the diverse available career paths.”

A March 2021 study estimated that the construction industry needs as many as 400,000 new workers to meet the current demand for construction services. With its workforce aging out and public interest in skilled trade careers dropping, the construction industry likely will need to rely on programs like “Path to Pro” to combat the skilled labor shortage.

Here are some of the program requirements:

• Candidates must be current high school seniors or high school graduates, or have a GED equivalent.
• Candidates must be enrolled, or intend to enroll, in an accredited building construction trade college or postsecondary program in the U.S.

This is not the first instance of The Home Depot investing in the skilled labor workforce. Three years ago the Foundation pledged $50 million over ten years to train 20,000 tradespeople. Earlier this month it awarded $30,000 in scholarships to six students to help cover the cost of their trade school tuition.

“Over the past three years, we have introduced more than 15,000 to the skilled trades and certified more than 5,000 to work in the trades,” said Shannon Gerber, executive director of The Home Depot Foundation.

“Through financial assistance to aspiring students, expanded grants to our existing program, and exciting new partnerships to support social equity through career readiness, our commitment to filling the skilled labor pipeline is stronger than ever.”