Several colleges across the country have opened food banks to assist students struggling to make ends meet at a time when tuition costs continue to rise and schools look to find ways to recoup budget losses over the last academic year.

Michigan State University, where students have dealt with the loss of the Michigan promise scholarship, has seen a 25 percent increase since 2008 in the number of students who visit its student-run food bank. Grand Valley State University opened a food pantry in April to help students cope with higher tuition costs. An article in the Detroit Free Press over the weekend describes the situations students have found themselves in. Some have parents who have been laid off and can no longer contribute to college educations, some have children and families of their own that they have had trouble supporting, some have lost part-time jobs that covered the costs of food, and others just need some help in between paychecks as they work campus jobs when they’re not attending class.

Michigan State’s Olin Health Center, where the food bank operates biweekly, and the Grand Valley State pantry, which has helped more than 200 students since it opened. Both are able to run through regular donations of cash and food.

Food banks across the country have seen an increase in visitors, both student and not, in tough economic times. Nearly one in 10 Massachusetts residents visited a food bank in 2009; one in eight people in both Fort Worth, Texas, and Greensboro, North Carolina visited a food bank last year. College campuses have responded with other types of emergency financial assistance, as well. The University of Michigan has been offering emergency grants to students who need help paying for the costs of food or medication, or an unexpected move. Students can apply online and receive $500 by the next morning, according to the Free Press article. Western Michigan University offers short-term emergency loans to help with living expenses.

If you’re having trouble covering costs, despite living frugally and within your means, there is help out there. Whether you look to your local community or explore options through your financial aid office, consider every option.

Posted: under College Budgets, College Costs, College News, College and the Economy.
Tags: College and the Economy, College Budgets, College Costs, college news, economy, Michigan scholarships, state news

Comments (0) Feb 09 2010

Even in the face of a continuing recession, new scholarship opportunities are being made available to students in a variety of situations.  Recently, students in two communities in Michigan, a state hit especially hard by economic problems, have received news of scholarship programs that will give them significant help paying for school, even as the state considers cutting funding to one of its largest merit scholarship awards.

Baldwin, a community in rural northern Michigan, is the first to take advantage of the state’s “Promise Zones” program, which allows areas with a high percentage of poor students to use state property tax funds to provide college scholarships for their students.  Baldwin plans to offer scholarships of up to $5,000 for up to four years to current high school seniors.  Up to nine other high-poverty communities in Michigan are eligible to participate in the program, provided they, like Baldwin, raise money to fund their scholarships for the first two years of awards.  The Promise Zone funding, like the state’s endangered Michigan Promise scholarship, were inspired by the Kalamazoo Promise scholarship, a full-tuition scholarship award created by an anonymous private donor that allows graduates of Kalamazoo public schools to attend any college in Michigan for four years.

Another Michigan community has also unveiled a substantial scholarship program for its high school students, this time a four-year full-tuition award to Finlandia University for all graduates of public schools in Hancock, a tiny mining town in the state’s Upper Peninsula, who gain admission to the college.  The scholarship program was created as Finlandia’s way of paying the community for the use of a building that the school district no longer needed.  Rather than working out a traditional payment plan for the purchase of the building, something complicated by tighter credit requirements, FInlandia proposed a deal that would provide more immediate and tangible benefits to the students of Hancock.  The scholarships will be offered to members of Finlandia’s current freshmen class and to subsequent graduates of Hancock’s schools.

Local scholarships like these exist for communities nationwide, and are likely to seek out inventive ways to find funding, as community members are committed to helping their neighbors succeed.  To find out more about scholarship opportunities for students in your area, conduct a free scholarship search.

Posted: under College News, College and the Economy, Scholarships.
Tags: College and the Economy, college news, college scholarships, full-tuition scholarships, local scholarships, Michigan scholarships, Scholarship Search, Scholarships, state news, state scholarship

Comments (0) Sep 08 2009