Like many students at UTA, Edward Perez, Jr. (’75 BS, Mathematics) completed his coursework while working full time to support his family. Thanks to his hard work, he went on to have a successful career prior to retiring from AT&T.
Based on his experience balancing personal responsibilities with a desire to pursue higher education, Perez wanted to find a way to provide scholarship support to students studying the physical sciences or nursing while employed. To accomplish this goal, he created a bequest that named UTA as the sole beneficiary of his IRA account upon his passing.
Thanks to his forethought and generosity, UTA was granted more than $1.5 million—the value of the IRA account—when he died in 2018. The funds have created two endowed scholarships—one for students studying in UTA’s College of Nursing and Health Innovation and another for students in the College of Science. Both scholarships are named the Edward and Dorothy Perez Scholarship Fund in honor of Perez and his late wife, Dorothy.
Scholarships are a critical resource that help UTA recruit and retain the best and the brightest students from around the country and the world while advancing them along their career paths. Thanks to Perez’s generosity, promising scholars are receiving the financial assistance they need to achieve their academic dreams and become the next generation of leaders.
To learn more about gifts of retirement assets like IRAs or other planned giving options, visit uta.giftlegacy.com or contact the Office of Gift and Estate Planning at (817) 272-2344 or giftandestateplanning@exchange.uta.edu.
