This week Northwestern University unveiled a new financial aid program geared at increasing minority and low-income enrollment.
In fall 2011, the Good Neighbor, Great University scholarship program will offer enhanced financial aid to about 100 incoming freshman from Chicago and Evanston high schools, though it is expected to expand to offer aid to up to 200 students in the future. The new scholarships will replace the loan and work study component in traditional financial aid packages.
Graduates from public and private high schools are eligible for the new aid. They may re-apply each year and must maintain at least a 2.0 GPA and remain full time students, taking at least nine credits per year.
The program will serve as a foundation for the university’s push to attract applications from minority and low-income students, said former Associated Student Government President Mike McGee (Communication ‘10), who served on the task force that planned the new program.
“This program’s very big, and it’s going to cost a lot of money,” McGee said. “But it’s going to affect a lot of students.”
University President Morton Schapiro and Penelope Peterson, dean of the School of Education and Social Policy, co-chaired the planning task force, which included other administrators, faculty, staff, trustees and a handful of students.
McGee said the next step is to spread word of the program to Evanston and Chicago high school students. He pointed to a breakdown in communication between the university and minority families as one reason for Northwestern’s historically low minority enrollment.
He is prepared, he said, to personally visit local high schools to promote the new financial aid. “I won’t be done with Northwestern any time soon,” he said.