Guarantor builds on efforts to enhance access to education
USA Funds to Sponsor $3-Million Scholarship Program
INDIANAPOLIS—USA Funds®, the nation's largest education-loan guarantor, today announced that it will triple funding for its scholarship program beginning with the 2002-03 academic year. The USA Funds Scholarship Program will award up to $3 million in new, need-based scholarships to help narrow the gap between college-participation rates of low-income and higher-income students.
The 2002-03 program will assist students from families with annual adjusted gross incomes of $35,000 or less by offering scholarships of $1,500 to full-time students and $750 to part-time students. Each of these scholarships will be renewable for up to an additional three years.
"USA Funds' mission as a nonprofit public charity is to support access to education for everyone," said William R. Neale, USA Funds chairman. "It is vitally important that we work to help improve the college-going rate of low-income students, which continues to lag behind that of their higher-income counterparts."
"Access Denied," a report from the Advisory Committee on Student Financial Assistance, discloses that, while access to higher education has improved for students at all income levels since 1970, the gap in college-participation rates between low-income students (those from families with incomes of less than $25,000) and higher-income students (whose families earn more than $75,000 annually) remains roughly the same as it was 30 years ago. The committee is an independent group of student-aid-policy advisers to Congress and the U.S. Secretary of Education.
The USA Funds Scholarship Program will award up to half of its 2002-03 scholarships to applicants who, in addition to demonstrating financial need, are members of ethnic minority groups or are physically disabled. "Access Denied" points out that, during the next 15 years, non-white young people will account for 80 percent of the growth in the traditional college-age population.
Up to half of the scholarships will be targeted to students in the nine states — Alaska, Arizona, Hawaii and the Pacific Islands, Indiana, Kansas, Maryland, Mississippi, Nevada and Wyoming — in which USA Funds is the designated guarantor of federal education loans.
"We are pleased to offer this enhanced scholarship program, and we are excited about its potential to help students in financial need realize the dream of attending college," said Carl C. Dalstrom, USA Funds president and CEO. "We agree with the Advisory Committee that need-based grant aid must be increased for low-income students in order to provide greater educational opportunity."
USA Funds' Web site - www.usafunds.org - will offer information about applying for the scholarships by fall 2001.
Headquartered in Indianapolis, USA Funds is a nonprofit corporation that supports access to education by providing financial and other valued services to those who pursue, provide or promote education. USA Funds annually guarantees education loans totaling more than $9 billion for students and parents throughout the nation.