SEM Scholarship Proposal
This is a proposal to coordinate the scholarship and financial aid awarding processes by combining the authority of both merit scholarships and need based financial aid with one entity, the Scholarship Committee. The Director of Financial Aid will serve as the Administrative Coordinator at the pleasure of the committee chair. Through the implementation of this program ALL scholarships will be reconciled through the authority of the Scholarship Committee. Combining these functions, the goals of the scholarship committee will include:
· Improved retention
· Improved Customer service to all scholarship applicants
· Earlier deadlines for awards
· Spending as much scholarship money as possible
· Broader spectrum of input with a more complete financial picture of all student awards including institutional, federal, state, and third party funding.
· Better response time to donors and more consistent adherence to the donor’s Memorandum of Understandings, (MOU’S).
· An opportunity to leverage financial aid awards to impact student enrollment to meet institutional objectives.
To implement these goals, the following schedule will be adopted:
For Fall Semester awards:
January 1st New Student (including transfer) scholarship application deadline.
January 15th Fund-balances provided to scholarship chairperson by foundation, departments and endowed funds held by institution.
January 20th Department heads deliver New/Transfer student awards to Scholarship Committee.
February 1st Award/Notification to all new/transfer student scholarship recipients.
February 1st Continuing Student Scholarship application deadline.
March 1st FAFSA Priority Deadline for all students.
March 15th First round notification of federal awards to students with complete financial aid files.
March 20th Department heads deliver continuing student awards to Scholarship Committee.
March 15th Award all continuing student scholarships (committee).
May 1st Deadline to accept scholarship awards for new and continuing students (consistent with the Statement of Principles of Good Practices).
May 10th Re-award declined scholarships
June 15th Audit to ensure all students met conditions and criteria of their scholarship awards.
June 30th Re-award scholarships after audit where students didn’t meet conditions and criteria of awarded scholarship.
Dec 17th Banner audit for meeting satisfactory academic progress standards.
Dec. 30th Funds identified for scholarships and tuition waivers to be awarded for Spring Semester.
Issues:
· Continuing Student awards prior to posting of spring grades. This issue will be addressed with conditions in award notification and audits ran over the summer.
· The scholarship committee will review the scholarship formulas for both new and continuing students to ensure processes fit institutional goals. For example the new student formula is widely considered to be too heavily weighted toward class rank and not standardized test scores. Also, the continuing student formula may need to be changed due to the recommended change in the awarding process.
· Students with less than 24 Montana Tech Credits. Often students starting in the spring do not have access to new student scholarships and are also not considered for fall scholarships because they have fewer than 24 Montana Tech credits. (Issue needs the immediate attention of the committee)
· COT students transferring to Montana Tech. Students are currently not considered for new or continuing student scholarships. ( Issue needs the immediate attention of the committee)
· Need to work with IT staff to update current databases into a more integrated
system.