University of Iowa debuts new scholarships

IOWA CITY - In hopes of addressing rising tuition and student debt levels while also increasing enrollment, the University of Iowa on Wednesday announced several new scholarships - including one aimed at the children and grandchildren of alumni.

The Iowa Heritage Award will be available to all incoming first-year and transfer students with a parent, stepparent, legal guardian, or grandparent who earned an undergraduate, graduate, or professional degree from the university. That scholarship, which could be doled out to hundreds of students, is worth $6,000 - or $1,500 a year - for up to four years.

Some high-achieving students who qualify for that award could be eligible for a second new scholarship - the President's Heritage Award. That will go to up to 20 students who meet the same legacy criteria and also performance standards for the Presidential Scholarship - in terms of grade-point average and ACT scores. That scholarship is worth another $6,000 over four years, meaning a qualifying student could get up to $12,000 off tuition, UI President Sally Mason said.

'This is our attempt not only to encourage legacies to come back to the University of Iowa as their family members have, but also to encourage those who've moved out of state - to bring those kids back to Iowa,” Mason said Wednesday during a meeting with the media. 'We want legacies from all over.”

Mason announced the new scholarships Wednesday as part of an expanded scholarship package for 2015 that she said aims to address rising tuition, mounting student debt, and the need to grow enrollment.

The Board of Regents over the summer approved a new way of funding its public universities that ties 60 percent of state allocations to in-state enrollment. If the UI does not increase its resident enrollment numbers, it could lose tens of millions of dollars - up to $46.5 million - over several years.

Additional UI scholarship changes for 2015 include increasing the Old Gold Scholarship awards from $3,000 a year to $5,000. Those scholarships are awarded automatically upon admission to students with at least a 30 ACT score and 3.8 grade-point average.

The university also is bumping up the value of its Iowa Scholars Awards to $3,500 for Iowa residents with at least a 27 ACT score and 3.8 GPA and $2,000 for Iowa residents with a 25 ACT score and 3.2 GPA.

The Iowa Boost Award also is new, providing $1,000 a year to Iowa residents who receive federal Pell Grants. And a new Iowa Abroad Scholarship will give $1,000 to Iowa residents approved to study abroad.

The new or amended scholarships could translate to a combined $11,500 a year for some Iowa residents and $12,910 a year for some non-resident students.

Mason said she hopes the awards will make college more affordable and decrease student debt. About 40 percent of UI graduates leave debt-free, but the rest owe something - the average debt for a UI student at the time of graduation in the 2012-13 school year was $27,304, up 78 percent from the $15,335 average UI student debt in the 2001-02 school year.

On top of making more aid available, Mason said she wants more students to meet with UI financial counselors before taking out loans to make sure they borrow only what they need. By federal standards, Mason said, only about $12,000 of the $27,000-plus average debt is 'need-based debt.”

The rest, she said, is 'non-need-based debt,” although she stopped short of calling it 'lifestyle debt.” Some students have criticized Mason for using that term - organizers of a student rally planned for later this month are referencing her comments to promote the event.

'Buying this typewriter instead of a laptop saved me over $1,000,” according to rally invitation circulating on Facebook. 'I guess my student debt really is a matter of lifestyle. Thanks for informing me Sally Mason!”

Mason on Wednesday said the university has seen examples of students incurring debt for lifestyle choices, but she's wary about using the term. Many students are in fact borrowing the money they need to survive while in school, she said - even if it doesn't match federal need-based calculations.

'Sometimes there are things that the federal forms don't factor in to what is truly need based,” Mason said. '(The forms) don't tell you the whole story.”

She said students often can get the 'whole story” by sitting down with a financial counselor who will conduct a comprehensive assessment of what a family needs in terms of financial aid.

And, Mason said, she's glad students are bringing awareness to the issue of student debt.

l Comments: (319) 339-3158; vanessa.miller@thegazette.com