Nearly 500 Bellevue College healthcare students will receive work-based learning scholarships this year, triple last year's 166.

The expansion follows a $423,000 donation from Seattle nonprofit foundry10 to the Bellevue College Foundation.

The scholarships, worth $750 each, help cover out-of-pocket costs that pile up during required clinical rotations and capstone research projects. Hospital parking can run upward of $20 a day, according to the college.

Some sites require students to buy branded scrubs or their own lead markers, X-ray blocking tools used to mark the left and right sides of anatomy.

"Students are just incurring that cost in order to complete their education," Sean Marsh, Bellevue College's vice president of Institutional Advancement and executive director of the Foundation, said in the college's Oct. 7 announcement of the gift.

Students enrolled in any of the college's 15 Health Sciences programs who take courses with a work-based learning component are eligible to apply. The scholarships are disbursed quarterly.

The Foundation said demand surged last year when far more students applied than funds could cover.

That pattern matched rising need the college has seen at its on-campus food pantry and through emergency funding programs.

An annual impact report found that past scholarship recipients graduated at twice the rate of the general student body. Their grade point averages exceeded the collegewide average every quarter since the program began.

Beyond scholarships, about $55,200 of the donation will buy clinical training equipment for several programs. The purchases include a hospital-grade pediatric crib and training mannequins for the Nursing and Certified Nursing Assistant (CNA) programs, a transvaginal ultrasound trainer for Diagnostic Ultrasound Technology, and a portable X-ray machine for Radiologic Technology.

The ultrasound trainer addresses a concrete gap. Stephanie Campbell, the college's Diagnostic Ultrasound Program chair, said in the Oct. 7 announcement that the program had only one transvaginal ultrasound phantom, limiting students to practicing one at a time. A second device will let more students build proficiency before performing the sensitive exam on patients.

The portable X-ray machine could also be used in the college's "mass casualty simulation events," training exercises held three times a year at Bellevue College's teaching clinical laboratory. Those simulations, which use actors and a special-effects team, have been a Nursing program exercise. The new equipment would let Radiologic Technology students participate as well.

foundry10, a Seattle-based educational research organization, has partnered with the Bellevue College Foundation for several years, according to 425 Business. Danny Brzovic of foundry10 said in the college's Oct. 7 announcement that the Foundation's work "demonstrates how the removal of barriers allows for each individual to be their most capable."

Applications for the scholarships go through the college's Health Sciences, Education and Wellness Institute.