In an effort to further expand the availability of college education, Capital has teamed up with Columbus State Community College to start a program to help aid Columbus State students looking to transfer.
This scholarship will be an expansion on the existing Main Street Scholarship, which grants all accepted, full-time undergraduate students between $20,000 to $27,000 in scholarship money.
Regarding the expansion of this scholarship, Provost Jody Fournier says, “It’s been in the works for months, but it just became available for students who will start at Capital in the fall of ‘23.” President Kaufman also comments that “it’s not specific to Columbus State.” This scholarship will also be available to incoming high school seniors.
For this expansion to be effective, students will have to meet certain criteria to be eligible. For high school students, it is open to Pell-eligible students, which Fournier identified as, “any student coming directly from high school where the household income is $60,000 or below.”
The student must also be in proficient academic standing, maintaining a GPA of 3.5 or above. For transfer students, this opportunity would be limited to Columbus State students who have at least achieved sophomore standing.
While these terms sound very similar to the scholarship earned from the Distinguished Scholarship Competition (DSC), this opportunity will be reserved strictly as an expansion of the Main Street Scholarship.
Provost Fournier comments about how, after implementing the Main Street scholarship for the incoming classes of the previous year, there was “a great need to increase access and opportunity for students who otherwise wouldn’t be able to afford all that we have to offer.”
Kaufman also elaborates on this: “It goes clear back to when we started issuing iPads to everyone because we are just trying to even the playing field.”
With this new opportunity to level the playing field for everyone, there will also be criteria that must be met in order to maintain this scholarship. According to Fournier, “For students coming from Columbus State Community College, they have to maintain Pell eligibility. Then, there’s the normal standards to be enrolled at the institution and that’s it for students coming in from high school.”
When asked about how this could affect the university’s future, both Provost Fournier and President Kaufman provided very positive and optimistic input: “The idea is that we want to become the premier private institution for student success and completion but also access and opportunity. We’re hoping to have students who, otherwise, would have never considered a school like Capital because of [the] cost to be able to take advantage of all that we have to offer.”
President Kaufman expands upon those points: “When you think of enrollment, the more enrollment we have, the better the environment for everyone. And when you look at the demographic trends, there’s probably an increasing number of potential students in the segment, so it enables us to compete for them.”
Over the past several years, the University has constantly and consistently been implementing new programs and resources to help aid students in their pursuit of higher education. Through this new scholarship opportunity, the University hopes to extend a helping hand to all those in need of a better and stronger opportunity.
