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21st Century Scholarship Covenant Offers
Students Hope
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By Roger J. Thompson
As parents continue to struggle with the ever-increasing cost of higher education, and states wrestle with higher education budgets, the issue of access and affordability becomes more pertinent. As a new administration settles into Washington, D.C., the issues surrounding higher education affordability, access, equity and accountability have rarely been more discussed.
Keeping college affordable is one issue that many higher education leaders discuss and debate with great frequency. How we balance providing quality education with an expanding pool of high school graduates and the increasing costs related to higher education is a challenge. Each of these issues is worthy of much discussion, research studies, articles and great debates at places like the College Board and the forums held each year. Given the challenges we face in higher education and in our K-12 system, we at Indiana University have tried to address these issues through innovative programs and new ideas. It is one of these ideas — based on increasing affordability for Indiana residents to attend the flagship campus of their state — that is worth noting.
In the summer of 2006, a group of leaders at Indiana University began thinking about the issue of affordability and considering possible ways to make an IU education at our Bloomington campus attainable for families across our state. From many discussions, significant data analysis and a desire to build upon an existing program to leverage our new dollars, a new financial aid program was created. Known as the Indiana University 21st Century Scholarship Covenant, the program was designed to pay the full cost of attendance for qualifying Indiana residents.
The idea behind the covenant was to build on Indiana’s already existing 21st Century Scholars Program which had been established years earlier by former Gov. Evan Bayh with the support of the Indiana Legislature. This program offered free tuition to high school students from middle- and low-income families who were committed to higher education and who stayed crime and drug free. As you can imagine, this program began to offer the real possibility of higher education to many students who, prior to the inception of the 21st Century Scholars Program, could not have dreamed of a college education.
The state of Indiana’s 21st Century Scholars Program covers only tuition and fees — less than half of the total cost of attending college. Our research indicated a significant number of 21st Century Scholars left IU without completing a degree and with extremely high debt loads from loans. In essence, the state program was providing base assistance for tuition, but the covenant was needed to provide funding to students and families for the full cost of attendance. In creating the covenant, we established a commitment to provide the full cost of attendance for any 21st Century Scholar admitted to IU, thus eliminating loans from the financial aid portfolio of these students. By providing funding for the full cost of attendance, the covenant has successfully eliminated financial uncertainty, anxiety and debt load. Indiana University’s 21st Century Scholarship Covenant program began as a “promise,” or commitment, from Indiana University to students who come from families where the cost of a college education might make attending IU prohibitive. In our view, the covenant was a “hope” program, a financial aid program that would offer hope to students who are often without hope. Imagine the impact of a program that offered talented young people from families with incomes generally below $30,000 the opportunity to graduate, debt free, from one of the world’s great universities.
In the fall of 2007, we enrolled 275 21st Century Scholars, all of whom received our IU covenant to cover the full cost of attendance. In awarding this initial cohort of covenant students, we exceeded our own projections for the success of the program. Throughout the 2007-08 calendar year, our marketing and outreach efforts increased significantly, and we established a goal to increase our covenant cohort for 2008 by about 15 percent to reach a second year cohort of just over 300 students. Much to our surprise and delight, in 2008, we enrolled 471 students in our Covenant program. The impact of this program on families and stakeholders from around the state has led us to believe that we will surpass our original estimates of enrolling 1,400 students across four cohorts and a financial commitment of more than $12 million to families in need. It is clear now that our desire to create a program of hope has been successful. As the Covenant prepares to enroll a third cohort, we believe that the program is embodying the words of legendary Indiana University President Herman B Wells, who was fond of saying, “Dream no small dreams.” I think President Wells would be pleased.
Roger J. Thompson, vice provost for enrollment management at Indiana University.
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