On the one-year anniversary of her album “Lemonade,” Grammy award-winning-singer, Beyoncé, announced her new “Formation Scholars” program that will launch for the 2017-2018 school year.

On Beyoncé’s website she clearly dictates that the purpose of the scholarship program is “to encourage and support young women who are unafraid to think outside the box and are bold, creative, conscious and confident.”

Also on her website, it states that four scholarships will be awarded to 4 different colleges, Berklee College of Music, Howard University, Parsons School of Design and Spelman College.  The criteria for the scholarship is that the student must be a female incoming, current, or a graduate student pursuing studies in creative arts, music, literature, or African-American studies.

Another celebrity lending a hand to college students facing student-loan-debt is Nicki Minaj. On May 7^th 2017, the singer replied to a student’s tweet that asked Minaj “Well you wanna pay for my tuition?” Her response was “Show me straight A’s that I can verify w/ur school and I’ll pay it. Who wants to join THAT contest?!?! Dead serious. Should I set it up?” Soon after, tons of straight A students were tweeting Nicki their info and Nicki promised a few fortunate followers that she will pay for their education expenses. After a certain limit Nicki stopped but promised to continue in a few months.

Student loan debt is the second highest debt category in the U.S., right behind mortgage debt. According to Make Lemonade, a personal finance website, there’s $1.4 trillion in student loan debt in the United States right now. With this crisis continuing to rise in America, it has been inspiring celebrities and organizations to reach out and help students in .