College Bridge Pathway Scholarship
The goal of the College Bridge Pathway Scholarship is to help eliminate financial barriers for upper-level ABE and ESL students transitioning to college-level English and to help them identify next steps. This scholarship covers 10 credits worth of tuition and fees for unfunded or under-funded students exiting Basic Skills and taking college-level classes the following quarter.
· ESL students who place into ENGL 099/101 (a 10-credit class) will also be enrolled in a $25 Basic Skills (3 cr.) support class. (This support class will not be covered by the scholarship.)
· ESL and ABE students who place into ENGL 101 (a 5-credit class) will not be required to enroll in the support class and can use the scholarship funds to pay for a second 5-credit class required in their Educational Plan.
College Bridge Scholarship funding will be used to supplement Federal/Workforce financial aid as well as other outside scholarships available to Basic Skills students, ensuring that all eligible students exiting Basic Skills will get their tuition paid as they complete their first, college-level “gateway” composition course. The Ed Fund will work with the office of Financial Aid to “backfill” any missing funding after Federal/Workforce or other outside funding has been applied.
Students must be considered in-state residents for tuition purposes (US citizens, Permanent Residents, A, E, G. H1, I, K, or L visa-holders, or in many cases Undocumented WA State HS graduates who have lived in WA for 3 years.)
College Bridge Pathway:
The scholarship is in reality a pathway designed to:
1) Require ABE and ESL students to successfully complete the “exit” class in their respective programs (ABE 050 or ESL 062) and receive direct placement into college-level English (ENGL 101).
2) Require (whenever possible) ABE and ESL students to successfully complete a 2- to 3-credit Occupational Education/College and Career Readiness class (HSC 048/ESL 059) designed to guide students through the transition from Basic Skills to college-level programs by having students work on skills inventories, research college and prof-tech programs, fill out Federal and State Financial Aid forms, and develop an educational plan with the ABE/ESL advisor.
Please see attached documents for pathways maps.
All ABE students who…
1) Complete ABE 050 (Language Arts II) with a 2.0 or higher.*
2) Successfully complete HSC 048: the 2- to 3-credit ABE Occupational Education class where they meet weekly with embedded advisors, fill out and submit FAFSA and outside scholarship forms, do a skills inventory, and learn about career and college programs.
3) Submit a completed Student Aid Form (SAR) (done in Occupational Education class and submitted to the College Bridge Scholarship Canvas Portfolio at the quarterly College Bridge Scholarship event)
4) Submit a completed Education Plan (done in Occupational Education class and submitted to the College Bridge Scholarship Canvas Portfolio at the quarterly College Bridge Scholarship event)
…will be eligible for the College Bridge Scholarship to cover tuition for ENGL 101 (5 cr.) and a second 5-credit class required in their educational plan in the following quarter.
*Students who complete ABE 040 with a 3.0 or higher, can, with teacher permission, also apply.
All ESL students who…
1) Complete ESL 062 (Level 6B) with a 2.0 or higher.*
2) Successfully complete ESL 059: the ESL 2-credit Career and College Readiness class where they meet weekly with embedded advisors, fill out and submit FAFSA and outside scholarship forms, do a skills inventory, and learn about career and college programs.
3) Submit a completed Student Aid Form (SAR) (done in Occupational Education class and submitted to the College Bridge Scholarship Canvas Portfolio at the quarterly College Bridge Scholarship event)
4) Submit a completed Education Plan (done in Occupational Education class and submitted to the College Bridge Scholarship Canvas Portfolio at the quarterly College Bridge Scholarship event)
…will be eligible for the College Bridge Scholarship to cover tuition for ENGL 099/101 (10 cr.) or English 101 (5 cr.) and a second 5-credit class required in their educational plan in the following quarter.
Students enrolled in ENGL 99/101 will also be enrolled in a linked 3-credit Basic Skills support class to ensure student success.
*Students who complete ESL 061 with a 3.0 or higher, can, with teacher permission, also apply.
Application Process:
The College Bridge Scholarship Application is housed online in Canvas. Interested students complete this application during the quarter if they are taking the Occupational Education/Career and College Readiness class. They can also, with faculty permission, complete this application on their own if they cannot take the Occupational Education/Career and College Readiness class.
The application has 4 steps and a student must complete each step by the end of the quarter before taking ENGL 099/101 or 101 in order to be eligible for the scholarship.
There are at least 2 events held quarterly to help all students complete this application:
· A FAFSA/WAFSA workshop held in the weeks before the financial aid priority deadline.
· A College Bridge Scholarship Event, held mid-quarter to focus on filling out the application.
The College Bridge Scholarship Application consists of 4 steps:
1) Students must fill out and submit Federal and Washington State Financial Aid Forms (FAFSA/WAFSA). This is facilitated as part of the OCC Ed/Career and College Readiness class as well a quarterly FAFSA/WAFSA event. Because the funding for the College Bridge Scholarship, like Federal Financial Aid, is based on a first-come, first-serve basis, students must submit these FAFSA and WAFSA forms to the government by the priority filing deadline. They must also submit their SAR (Student Aid Report) into the College Bridge Application canvas portfolio by the last day of instruction in the quarter preceding scholarship-funded quarter.
2) Students must meet with an ABE/ESL advisor and develop an educational plan which then must be submitted by the last day of instruction in the quarter preceding scholarship-funded quarter. (Students who want scholarship funding for winter quarter, for example, must submit an education plan by the last day of fall quarter.) This too is facilitated in the ABE/ESL 2- to 3-credit OCC Ed/Career and College Readiness class, which has embedded advising. They must submit their Educational Plan into the College Bridge Application canvas portfolio by the last day of instruction in the quarter preceding scholarship-funded quarter.
3) Students must fill out a College Bridge Scholarship questionnaire which allows us to collect some demographic data on our students and their short- and long-term goals. This too must be submitted in College Bridge Application canvas portfolio by the last day of instruction in the quarter preceding scholarship-funded quarter. It is facilitated during the quarterly College Bridge Scholarship event.
4) Students must also submit a transcript College Bridge Application canvas portfolio that shows they passed the ABE or ESL exit class with required GPA. Since classes have been revised to meet direct placement requirements, no transcripts before Fall 2016 will be accepted.
When the student has successfully completed the pathway and the College Bridge Scholarship application, the Scholarship Review Committee will check the Canvas shell to be sure everything is in order, and will then submit the student’s information and next quarter’s registration to financial aid. Once financial aid/outside funding has been applied to the tuition, the remainder, if any, will be covered by the College Bridge Pathway Scholarship Fund.
Scholarship Review Committee: will consist of the Dean of Basic and Transitional Studies, the ESL and ABE Program Coordinators and ESL and ABE faculty members teaching the “exit” classes. The Ed Fund Scholarship Manager will also be a part of the committee.
While we expect most ESL students to need the additional support of ENGL 099/101 and most ABE students not to need it, the Scholarship Review Committee will make the final decision on whether a student goes to ENGL 099/101 or ENGL 101.
Award Limits and Criteria: We are currently expecting approximately 10 ABE and 10 ESL students to successfully complete the College Bridge Pathway and access the scholarship funding each quarter. Because of this, we plan to award no more than $20,000/quarter unless special permission is given by the Dean of BTS.
If there are more students eligible for this award than scholarship funds available, we will award funding on a first-come, first-serve basis.
As mentioned above, students must be considered in-state residents for tuition purposes (US citizens, Permanent Residents, A, E, G. H1, I, K, or L visa-holders, or in many cases Undocumented WA State HS graduates who have lived in WA for 3 years.)
Enrollment in English 099/101 or English 101: Scholarship eligible students in the ABE and ESL exit classes will follow the same procedures for enrolling in classes as Developmental English students, which allows enrollment in ENGL 099/101 or ENGL 101 by week 8 of the quarter but is dependent on a student’s final grade.
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Revised by BTS division: 10/17/16