<p>Under this program, which is modeled on one in Kalamazoo, New Haven public school students who maintain high grades, do community service and have a good attendance record will get a full ride at public universities and colleges and $2500 a year toward privates. It is not need based and is funded by Yale and another organization.</p>
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<p>How much of the cost of attending UConn is tuition? Massachusetts has a similar program for full tuition scholarships for top students in the state. Sounds great, right? Well, UMass Amherst costs over $12,000 per year (not including room & board) for Mass. residents, but only $1,712 of that is tuition. The rest are fees, not covered by the scholarship.</p>
<p>Now, $1712 is nothing to sneeze at, but it doesn’t come close to paying for college.</p>
<p>I was wondering the same thing, since tuition is less than half the total costs. UConn tuition is $8000, which would be covered under this program. Room and board and fees add another $13,000. This program would probably work best for students who are able to live at home and commute to one of the campuses or community college. </p>
<p>What’s also interesting is that there is no need-based requirement. I guess they feel that this might encourage middle and upper middle class families to live in the city and send their kids to public schools.</p>
<p>Our Missouri High School has the A+ program. Students enroll as a Freshman. They have to meet the criteria similar to that above. Good attendance all 4 yrs , community service, citizenship, etc. </p>
<p>The A+ will pay for tuition at Community college. Some state schools offer a SMALL scholarship if you choose to forgo the A+ benefits at CC and come to their school instead. For example , Northwest gives the students $1500 freshman year and Mizzou offers $1000. On the other hand, MO Western gives full cost of tuition for the first 2 years, at just over $5000 each.</p>
<p>There are no financial requirements. If students have any drinking convictions or a few other violations listed, they lose all benefits.</p>
<p>Several students here take advantage of the program by going to CC the first 2 years with free tuition & then transferring.</p>
<p>This program sounds very similar ! It’s not a full ride by any means, but free money is free money. There are a lot of smart kids that don’t get the academic scholarships but don’t qualify for financial aid either. This helps bridge that gap.</p>
<p>When I went to UConn there was NO tuition. We paid room, board, and fees … it was about $1000 a year. And we had to step over dino poop on the way to class. </p>
<p>UConn began to charge a very nominal tuition (like $200) in the late 70s.</p>
<p>“Room and board and fees add another $13,000.”</p>
<p>A student should be able to earn at least $5000 a year through work study and living at home in the summer. Assuming no other financial aid, borrowing a total of $32,000 for a bachelor’s degree from UConn might well be worth it. It’s not huge debt, and it’s a much better degree than Southern Connecticut State. You could climb up into the middle class by that route.</p>
<p>I was a senior in high school when Kalamazoo Public Schools unveiled the Kalamazoo Promise… and I lived about a mile outside of the district. It was a little weird hearing about my friends from the school district suddenly having the pressure taken off financially, as, if I recall correctly, it happened very much midway through the college admissions cycle for that year. I couldn’t be too upset, because Kalamazoo PS was and is a very struggling district, and the suburban public I attended was not. An interesting bonus for our graduating class was the deal that the two local universities (Western Michigan and Kalamazoo College) cut for that year only-- Promise students attending WMU got free tuition AND room and board, and at K College there was some sort of setup for Promise students that met a certain academic standard that would allow them to attend with free room, board, tuition and a substantial stipend.</p>
<p>As to the fact that it’s not need-based, I think in Kalamazoo that was an attempt to make KPS more of a viable option for the type of families that care about the quality of schools their kids attend. In this area, most affluent families with kids live in the suburb just outside of Kalamazoo.</p>