College joins more than 200 other community colleges nation-wide in offering tuition free promise program to County residents
Yavapai Community College announced that it has initiated a tuition free scholarship program beginning in the fall 2019. In theory, every high school graduate seeking a two-year degree in Yavapai County could attend the Community College tuition free. The College goals driving the promise scholarship program are twofold: First, The College wants to increase its market for college bound students. Second, it wants to encourage students to complete and obtain a degree in a two-year period.
The new scholarship promise program has a specific list of requirements. They include the following:
- Students who graduate from a Yavapai County high school (nowhere else), regardless of their grade point average, are eligible for the program. Persons completing a GED are also eligible.
- Students must complete their degree in two years, or the promise program will not apply to them. This means, according to the College, that they have the summer following graduation and the two years after that to take 60 credits and obtain their degree.
- Students must be “Pell eligible.” This means they must maintain a certain grade point average and take a minimum of six course credits per semester.
- The College noted that student tuition will in a large number of cases most likely be paid via a Pell grant. However, in those instances where the grant or scholarship fails to pay all of a student’s tuition, upon graduation the student will be reimbursed the out-of-pocket difference that was paid to the College. However, prior to graduation, the student must make up the difference. Graduation is a prerequisite.
- The program will only pay for 60 credits.
- The aviation program is excluded.
- Nursing students, many of whom are considered tier 3 students, will have to pay the college for the additional tuition between tier 2 and tier 3. That money is not reimbursable by the College.
- Students obtaining two-year certificates are not eligible for the program. This includes students in the career and technical education training program.
The 11 minute video clip produced by the Blog, which follows below, provides a detailed description of this program as it was outlined to the Community College Governing Board at its February meeting. The Community College is expected to provide greater details about the program before fall.