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The official website for Miss America Organization claims:

The Miss America Organization is one of the nation's leading achievement programs and the world's largest provider of scholarship assistance for young women. Last year, the Miss America Organization and its state and local organizations made available more than $45 million in cash and scholarship assistance. This assistance is not just for the handful of young women who become Miss America, but is available to the over 12,000 young women who compete in the state and local competitions as well.

Is Miss America Organization the world's largest provider of scholarship assistance for young women?

Franck Dernoncourt
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    This is clearly inspired by [Last Week Tonight](http://time.com/3418349/john-oliver-miss-america-pageant-scholarships/) report of a few days ago. Are you skeptical of John Oliver's report? – Oddthinking Sep 28 '14 at 02:09
  • @Oddthinking Hmm yeah probably the source of inspiration of the guy who posted this on Facebook. Interesting report, thanks! That explains the ending 'lol'. But at 11:45 in the video, John does say even though the true number is around $4 million or somewhere below, it is still the largest women-only scholarship they could find, which I find surprising. – Franck Dernoncourt Sep 28 '14 at 03:38
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    A nice effect of Oliver's reporting is that the Society of Women Engineers received $25K in scholarship donations the following week: http://time.com/3426950/john-oliver-women-scholarships/ – Larry OBrien Sep 28 '14 at 17:38
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    What is the *exact* claim? Are we only looking at programs that target specifically women, or which broader program gives the most money to women for college? If it's women-only, this doesn't surprise me, since most schlarship programs aren't limited to a single sex/gender. The US govt gives out [far more](http://fedmoney.org/grants/0-scholarships.htm) to women in general. Even if you just look at a [*single* veteran program](http://fedmoney.org/grants/64027-00-post-9-11-veterans-educational-assistance), they paid out over **8B USD** in FY 11. I'm sure more than $45M of that went to women. – Is Begot Sep 29 '14 at 13:11
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    @Geobits The exact claim is reproduced in the question, and is vague enough not to distinguish between the two scenarios, so I'd imagine a good answer would speak to both. That might be how they're getting away with that claim: it may be true that they're the largest sex-limited scholarship program aimed at women but phrased it to mislead the reader into thinking they're the largest overall provider to women. – Yamikuronue Sep 30 '14 at 16:31
  • If you actually watched the John Oliver report, you will see that he pretty clearly explained why Miss America did not pay $45m in scholarships last year. (Short answer: most of the money they 'made available' was under circumstances where only a tiny, tiny fraction of it could be claimed). However the program also said they believed it possible that Miss America was *still* the largest provider of women-only scholarships, even with the massively reduced figure. SO: Are you asking us to verify the $45m figure, or whether they are still the largest provider of scholarships? – DJClayworth Oct 02 '14 at 21:02
  • @DJ Latter option. – Franck Dernoncourt Oct 02 '14 at 21:04

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