Education & Student Aid · Surprise rank #263
Get Your College Paid for After Losing a First-Responder Parent or Spouse!
The NYS Memorial Scholarship covers tuition plus room, board, books and transportation for the children, spouses and financial dependents of firefighters, volunteer firefighters, police officers, peace officers and EMS workers who died from line-of-duty injuries. It pays cost of attendance, not just tuition.
Who
Children, spouses and financial dependents of firefighters, volunteer firefighters, police officers, peace officers (including New York State correction officers) and emergency medical service workers who died as a result of injuries sustained in the line of duty in service to New York State.
Where: For study at colleges in New York State. The qualifying death must have been in service to New York State; the student does not have to live in New York.
What to do
Start here: Complete the NYS Memorial Scholarship web supplement on HESC's site to establish eligibility, then file the FAFSA and TAP application each year to trigger payment. Out-of-state residents call the HESC Scholarship Unit at 1-888-697-4372 for a Scholarship and Grant Payment Application. Submit a separate supplement for each family member who may ever use it.
Eligibility: You must be the child, spouse or financial dependent of a qualifying first responder who died from line-of-duty injuries in service to New York State, be enrolled full-time in an approved undergraduate program at a college in New York State, and be in good academic standing and not in default on a student loan or NYS award.
What you get
This is a cost-of-attendance scholarship, which means it is designed to cover far more than tuition. HESC pays an amount equal to your actual tuition and mandatory fees or the SUNY average, whichever is less, plus set allowances for room and board, books and supplies, and transportation. It runs for up to four years of full-time undergraduate study, or five years in an approved five-year degree program.
Benefit: Tuition and mandatory fees up to the SUNY average, plus allowances for room and board, books and supplies, and transportation, at a college in New York State.
Possible value: Using HESC's published 2025-26 allowance chart, a student living on campus or off campus at an independent college is budgeted at about $28,120 for the full year, and a commuter at about $17,250, with $1,350 for books and supplies and $1,080–$1,860 for transportation. Over four years that can exceed $100,000 for a residential student. Other grants and scholarships reduce the award, and total aid cannot exceed your federal cost of attendance.
Good to know
Important: Establishing eligibility and getting paid are two separate steps — families who complete the supplement but skip the annual FAFSA and TAP payment application by the June 30 deadline receive nothing that year. Apply for every family member who might attend college someday, even young children, because gathering proof years later is much harder. The award also shrinks dollar-for-dollar as other scholarships come in.
Availability: Active; accepting applications.
Why people miss it: Departments and unions usually point families to their own line-of-duty death benefits and burial funds, and the separate state college scholarship goes unmentioned until the children are already college-age.
Sources reviewed: Aug 10, 2026