OREANDA-NEWS. Southwest Airlines (NYSE: LUV), in partnership with the Hispanic Association of Colleges and Universities (HACU), has awarded 90 students with complimentary roundtrip airfare as part of the Lanzate!/Take Off! travel award program.

The Lanzate! program is geared toward Hispanic college students with economic need who attend school far away from home. Hispanic college students, ranging from incoming freshmen through graduate students, submitted essays displaying their need for travel on Southwest Airlines. In the application essays, students wrote about their personal experiences and the importance of staying connected with their families while pursuing higher education away from family. A panel of judges made up of college professors and educational advocates met to determine the award recipients. Recipients were awarded between one and four roundtrip tickets for travel for themselves or a family member. Southwest gave 231 tickets this year to encourage students to continue on their path to higher education.

"We are proud to be in our tenth year of helping Hispanic youth throughout the country make their dreams of higher education come true," said Christine Ortega, Southwest's Manager of Community Affairs & Grassroots. "For many Hispanic students, the ability to stay connected to their family determines whether they graduate or drop out of school. These tickets allow either students to fly home or their families fly to campus to celebrate important milestones in their college journeys."

"For the past ten years, students have submitted compelling essays and sent heartwarming letters that demonstrate the importance of the Southwest Lanzate! Travel Awards Program to their higher education success," said Antonio R. Flores, HACU President and CEO. "The success of Hispanics in higher education depends on a community effort, and Southwest Airlines has proven time and again that they support our community wholeheartedly with the extremely successful Lanzate! travel award program. Congratulations to the students and to Southwest Airlines for this wonderful program."