How Your Online Dating Past Could Land Your Kid a Scholarship

Lots has changed about online dating since its earliest incarnations were invented 20 years ago. Discretion has certainly eroded, the market has become more saturated with potential mates, and newer services like Tinder and OkCupid have made the idea of online dating not only socially acceptable but also kind of cool. (Pew reports that in 2014 nearly one in ten Americans have tried online dating.) So with the stigma of finding your significant other digitally practically depleted, it’s time for the early adopters to reap some benefits.

For couples who connected through one of the first online dating services, Match.com, and later created a family together, the opportunity to shout from the rooftops how their union came to be is finally here. Match, which launched in 1995, has announced the MatchMade Scholarship Contest, a $50,000 program open to children who were, well, "made" by Match. The competition for the grant is, not surprisingly, pretty stiff: Match claims that the company has played a part in producing over one million babies throughout its 19 years of business. And it makes sense: According to a 2013 study published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, more than one-third of U.S. marriages begin with online dating, and those couples are slightly happier and less likely to divorce than couples who meet through other means.

Students between the ages of 13 and 20 whose parents’ love stories somehow involve Match are eligible and must submit a video explaining their parents' "first messages exchanged on Match to the moment they knew they were MatchMade for each other.” As an added bonus, the company will also throw in an extra $5,000 just for mom and dad to put toward a vacation (they deserve it after all).

Here’s to hoping that Tinder and OkCupid last long enough to assist in spawning an entire generation of children just so we can learn from their kids how “swipe left” and swipe right” or virtual winks eventually turned into love.