Newstrack: Summer Hawk grant spikes 300-plus percent

Background

IOWA CITY — University of Iowa President Sally Mason announced the Summer Hawk Tuition Grant program in 2013 as part of an institutional push to increase four-year graduation rates and reduce student debt levels.

'That was one of our goals,' Mason said last year while discussing the program's mission. 'To reduce the time and expense of getting to the end result of a four-year college education.'

What's happened since

Last summer — the first one in which new UI undergraduate students could take advantage of a full-tuition scholarship program for up to 12 hours of summer study — 313 students received grants.

This summer — in the program's second year — that number spiked more than three and a half times, to 1,142 students. The value of those scholarships rose from about $900,000 to $3.5 million, although that doesn't exactly correlate with the cost to the university — as some summer courses had space to take on more students without adding more in instructional expenses.

'Part of the strategy for this was to provide opportunities to go in the summer and fill up classes,' Executive Vice President and Provost Barry Butler said.

The grant is available to first-year, first-time students who enrolled in summer 2013 or after, and it offsets tuition costs for up to 12 semester hours per summer session.

The grant covers the full cost of tuition for resident students for up to 12 hours, and it covers the difference between resident and non-resident tuition for non-resident students registered for more than four semester hours.

For most students, the grant only can be used during one summer — although students enrolled in the UI's degree-in-three program, another new initiative aimed at cutting the cost and time to graduation — can use it over two summers.

Butler said he believes the Summer Hawk Tuition Grant is behind an uptick in total summer enrollment. The session, which runs from May 18 to Aug. 7, enrolled 11,745 students, up from 11,103 last summer, 11,140 in 2013, 11,099 in 2012, and 11,065 in 2011, according to the UI Office of the Registrar.

Taylor Osborn, 20, a UI psychology major, is taking about six hours of study this summer — but at a community college rather than the university. She didn't know about the UI tuition grant program until it was too late, but Osborn said she hopes to take advantage next year.

'I plan to take nine hours next summer, and that will put me back on track to graduate a semester early,' she said.

The grant will save her about $2,000 in summer tuition, plus another $4,000 if she's able to shave off a semester.

'Any money you can save in college is nice,' she said.