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Georgetown College and the University of Kentucky’s medical school have announced a new partnership to prepare minority students for careers in medicine. Under the partnership, Georgetown will begin identifying talented minority students in middle school, providing them support and access to professionals in the medical field who can serve as inspiration and mentors. The goal is to produce two Georgetown graduates each year who qualify for and earn admission to UK’s medical school. UK will provide financial assistance to help the students further their education after they graduate from Georgetown.

From “Partnership to groom minority med students” in the Lexington Herald-Leader, by Art Jester:

Jay Perman, dean of the UK College of Medicine, said that UK and Georgetown have created a “model of collaboration between two higher-education institutions.”

“Our hope is to motivate students to pursue a medical career before they start high school so they can begin to prepare for their medical education early by taking all of the appropriate courses,” he said. “But more importantly, our hope is to inspire them and equip them with the skills needed to make their dream of a medical career a reality.”

William H. Crouch Jr., president of Georgetown College, said the partnership with UK will be a “new ray of hope” to minority students who might dismiss their medical ambitions because of the high cost of education.

“Their focus can be on learning, not anxiety over finances,” Crouch said.

This partnership is the latest in a series of Georgetown College efforts to increase the diversity of the college’s student body under the leadership of President Crouch.

Centre students meet with legislators to discuss state-funded financial aid programs (Centre.edu)

DANVILLE, KY—Financial aid is a key factor in the decision-making process for many high school students embarking on their search for the right college. With possible cuts to educational funding in Kentucky’s proposed budget for the coming year, aid programs such as the Kentucky Tuition Grant (KTG), the College Access Program (CAP) and the Kentucky Educational Excellence Scholarship Program (KEES) all could face reductions in the next fiscal year.

In the support of continued funding for these programs, Milton Reigelman, J. Rice Cowan Professor of English; Ned Frazer, associate director of admission; and eight Centre students who receive benefits from state-funded student aid participated in the Association of Independent Kentucky Colleges and Universities (AIKCU) Legislative Day on Wednesday, February 13, in Frankfort.

Despite a widespread blanket of ice and snow, the group made their way to the state’s capitol to meet with legislators. State-funded aid programs enable the students on the trip, as well as many others, to attend Centre College without the threat of excessive loan repayments after graduation.

Kyle Longton ‘08, of Louisville, has depended on merit and need-based financial aid for all four years of his Centre education.

“While the College provides me with significant support, I’ve also received state grants,” Longton says. “My KEES Scholarship money was one of the reasons I stayed in Kentucky for college, and I’ve been able to keep full funding all four years.”

Longton says he fears that reduced funding to KEES will result in more students leaving the Commonwealth with fewer benefits for staying. He says, “We could see not only a financial drain, but also a brain drain.”

This possibility is also alarming to Reigelman, who says that Kentucky spends only four percent of its educational funding on private higher education, versus 96 percent for public schools. But that small percentage is still important to Centre students who, he says, rely heavily on the Kentucky Tuition Grant program and the KEES money they’ve earned.

Morgan Lynn ‘11, of Marion, Ky., looks at the larger picture. “Student aid from the state makes it possible, and definitely easier, for students to bear the burden of rising tuition costs at private colleges,” she says. “In turn, students in small liberal arts schools like Centre go on to become highly motivated, productive members of society.” Continue reading the full article.

Both the Kentucky Senate and House of Representatives approved resolutions yesterday proclaiming February 13, 2008 Independent, Nonprofit Higher Education Day in the Commonwealth. Representatives from almost every AIKCU campus braved the inclement weather to come to Frankfort to celebrate independent higher education and thank legislators for their support of Kentucky’s student financial aid programs. The full text of Senate Resolution 112, introduced on the floor by Senate Education Committee Chairman (and former Campbellsville University president) Ken Winters, appears below. The resolution was cosponsored by all 38 members of the Senate and adopted by voice vote.

A similar resolution (HR 121) was introduced in the House by Speaker of the House Jody Richards, a Kentucky Wesleyan College alum, and adopted by voice vote.

A RESOLUTION recognizing Kentucky’s nonprofit, independent colleges and universities and their students and alumni.

WHEREAS, Kentucky’s 20 nonprofit, independent colleges and universities educate almost 29,000 students annually; and

WHEREAS, 22 percent of bachelor’s degrees awarded in the Commonwealth are awarded by these institutions; and

WHEREAS, 25 percent of Kentucky’s bachelor’s degrees in teaching and nursing and even larger percentages of other bachelor’s degrees produced in math and science are awarded by these institutions; and

WHEREAS, small classes, individual attention, and an emphasis on preparation for life and work are hallmarks of these institutions; and

WHEREAS, these colleges and universities meet the high standards set by the Commission on Colleges of the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools, arguably the toughest regional accreditation standards for higher education in the United States; and

WHEREAS, these nonprofit, independent colleges and universities have committed to playing a major role in Kentucky’s 2020 “Double the Numbers” efforts; and

WHEREAS, Nobel Prize winners, governors, justices, congressmen, and distinguished members of the Kentucky General Assembly were educated on these campuses; and

WHEREAS, about 100,000 independent college and university alumni live, work, pay taxes, and vote in the Commonwealth; and

WHEREAS, hundreds of classrooms and laboratories, libraries, theaters, dormitories, athletics facilities, and related structures valued at well over one billion dollars are provided to educate students and serve communities at no cost to the Commonwealth; and

WHEREAS, these 20 institutions are major employers and economic development partners that, when taken together, would rank 18th among Kentucky’s 25 largest public corporations; and

WHEREAS, these institutions enhance the economic and cultural viability of communities across the state from Pikeville to Mayfield and points in between; and

WHEREAS, tuition, on average, is 35 per cent lower than the national independent college average and 25 percent less than the Southern average; and

WHEREAS, these institutions provide another $130 million in financial aid to their students annually; and

WHEREAS, these colleges and universities serve the Commonwealth and its students and communities, while receiving only four percent of the state’s postsecondary education appropriations in the form of student financial aid; and

WHEREAS, students, faculty, and staff are visiting the Capitol today to thank members of this august body for their support of student financial aid;

NOW, THEREFORE,

Be it resolved by the Senate of the General Assembly of the Commonwealth of Kentucky:

Section 1. The Senate salutes the outstanding contributions Kentucky’s 20 independent colleges and universities and their students and staff make to the Commonwealth and its future.

Section 2. The Senate recognizes Wednesday, February 13, 2008, as Independent, Nonprofit Higher Education Day in the Commonwealth.

Section 3. The Clerk of the Senate shall forward a copy of this Resolution to Dr. Gary Cox, President, Association of Independent Kentucky Colleges and Universities, 484 Chenault Avenue, Frankfort, Kentucky 40601, for sharing with the Commonwealth’s 20 independent colleges and universities.

This Financial Aid Tip of the Month comes courtesy of the Kentucky Higher Education Assistance Authority (http://www.kheaa.com).

High school seniors who are thinking about going to an AIKCU college or university this fall are encouraged to gather the information required to fill out the Free Application for Federal Student Aid, more often called the FAFSA.

The FAFSA is the form students fill out to see if they qualify for federal and state grants and loans. Financial aid professionals advise students to send in the FAFSA even if they don’t think they qualify for aid. Many colleges use information from the FAFSA to determine who is eligible for grants and scholarships administered by the school.

The FAFSA asks for information about income, assets and expenses. A formula set by Congress is applied to the information to determine the student’s eligibility for federal and state aid. If the student is considered dependent under federal guidelines, both the student and parents must provide financial information. Nearly all students going directly to college from high school will be considered dependent.

Parents and students who need help filling out the FAFSA should attend the nearest College Goal Sunday location on January 27. Financial aid professionals will go over the FAFSA in detail and answer questions, free of charge. The sessions are sponsored by the Kentucky Association of Student Financial Aid Administrators, in cooperation with the Lumina Foundation, The Student Loan People and the Kentucky Higher Education Assistance Authority (KHEAA). To find a College Goal Sunday site near you, visit www.kasfaa.com/cgs.

Students who submit the FAFSA online usually get a response a week or two faster than those who mail in a paper FAFSA.

To learn how to plan and prepare for higher education and to access the FAFSA, go to www.GoHigherKY.org. For more information about Kentucky scholarships and grants, visit www.kheaa.com or call (800) 928-8926, extension 7381. For information about low-cost student loans, visit www.studentloanpeople.com or call (888) 678-4625.

Representative John Yarmuth (D-3rd District) was recently honored as the “Outstanding New Member” of Congress by the Committee for Education Funding (CEF) during their Annual Awards Gala in Washington DC. Yarmuth was recognized for his commitment to education issues and for his interest in increasing federal funding for education programs.

“During this 110th Congress, first year Representative John Yarmuth clearly distinguished himself as an advocate for education funding and we are proud to recognize him,” said Ed Kealy, Executive Director of the Committee for Education Funding.

In her introduction of Yarmuth, CEF Vice President Hilary Goldman said that CEF was “stunned” by Yarmuth’s record during his short time in office, because it “exceeded all expectations for a recipient of CEF’s Outstanding New Member award.”

Yarmuth serves on the House Education and Labor Committee and its Subcommittee on Higher Education, Lifelong Learning, and Competitiveness.

“Education is quite simply the key to America’s long term success in the world, it is the great hope for our children and future generations, and in America, a world-class education should be a right, not a crap shoot,” Yarmuth said in his acceptance speech. “The challenges are great, but the will to meet them, I believe is greater.”

Particularly notable for AIKCU students is the Louisville Congressman’s commitment to promoting college access and affordability. Yarmuth has been one of the key voices calling for increases in the Pell Grant program and ways to reduce student loan debt. He recently served on the Conference Committee for the College Cost Reduction Act that will put $11 billion into the Pell Grant program. The President has vowed to sign the bill, which will provide the largest investment in higher education since the G.I. Bill.

“We are delighted that Congressman Yarmuth was recognized for his commitment to education,” said AIKCU President Gary S. Cox. “It is certainly a well-deserved honor. He’s shown a great deal of interest and support not only for Bellarmine and Spalding, but for all our members, and especially for our students.”

In addition to Yarmuth, CEF also honored former Presidents Bill Clinton and George H.W. Bush with “Charles Wilson Lee Distinguished Citizen Awards” for their commitment to education in the years since they left office.

Read more about the honor at Congressman Yarmuth’s website.

For more information on CEF or its Annual Awards Gala, visit their website at http://www.cef.org.

The following release is courtesy of KHEAA.

College grants available for adult students

FRANKFORT, KY (June 6, 2007) — Adult Kentuckians who have never taken college classes, but want to, may be eligible to take advantage of a new Go Higher Grant administered by the Kentucky Higher Education Assistance Authority (KHEAA).

Go Higher Grants are available to adults with financial need who are age 24 or older and enrolled for fewer than six credit hours at a participating Kentucky college or university. The maximum award amount is $1,000 and covers tuition plus a book allowance of $50 per credit hour. The grants are only available for the 2007-2008 school year.

These grants are designed to give adults a taste of college and encourage them to continue their education. Any grant funds left over from the fall semester may be used in the spring semester for any number of credit hours up to the $1,000 maximum award amount.

To qualify, students must complete a Go Higher Grant application and the Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA). Grant applications are available on www.kheaa.com or from adult education and learning centers. The FAFSA may be submitted online at www.fafsa.ed.gov. Paper versions of the FAFSA are available at adult education centers and college financial aid offices. The priority deadline for application is July 1, 2007; however, students are encouraged to submit the FAFSA as soon as possible.

To learn how to plan and prepare for higher education, visit www.GoHigherKY.org. For more information about Kentucky scholarships and grants, visit www.kheaa.com; write KHEAA, P.O. Box 798, Frankfort, KY 40602-0798; or call (800) 928-8926, extension 7381. For more information about student loans, visit www.studentloanpeople.com; write The Student Loan People, P.O. Box 24328, Louisville, KY 40224-0328; or call (888) 678-4625.

Toyota Motor Manufacturing Kentucky (TMMK) was honored during the annual AIKCU recognition dinner for their 20 years in Kentucky (2006 marked their 2oth anniversary) and their sustained commitment to AIKCU’s Named Scholars Program over that time. Toyota has provided more than $26 million in charitable contributions since the Georgetown plant was established, with almost $9 million of that going to education organizations. AIKCU is very proud that TMMK has chosen to provide more than $748,000 in scholarships to AIKCU students, including $70,000 in 2006-07.

TMMK’s Kim Menke and 2006-07 Toyota Named Scholars

The college search and financial aid experience of Asbury College freshman Will Sallee is featured prominently in writer Kathy Witt’s article “Student Loan Strategies” in the February issue of Kentucky Living magazine. Witt looks at the entire financial aid process, from filling out the FAFSA to financial aid resources available through the Kentucky Higher Education Assistance Authority and GoHigherKY.org. It’s a must read for any student or parent preparing for college.

Included is a look at how the options afforded by student loans opened up the college search for Will, allowing him to focus on finding the right fit in a college:

“A good fit.” That is how Bill Sallee describes his son Will’s attendance at Asbury College after discovering that filling out loan applications would greatly expand his higher education options.

“Will was able to think about attending institutions other than state universities,” says Sallee. “We had done all of our planning around the idea of a state university and, by seeing what was available through loans, it allowed us to look at smaller and private colleges we had never looked at.

“The other reason we were interested in applying for loans was that Will very much wanted to be a collegiate swimmer and those opportunities were much greater for him at a smaller, private college.”

Will, a confirmed water baby by age 5, swam for four years in high school. Being able to continue the sport at the college level was a major criterion that helped him determine which college would be the best for him.

“The loan process also enabled Will to consider going to a Christian college,” adds Sallee. “It was another benefit we found by going through the financial aid process.”

“Pursuing loan options is a very important part of the financial aid process for most families,” adds Anderson. “Government loans should be the first option (Federal Stafford Loan, Federal Perkins Loan, Federal PLUS loan), but private loans can be a great help in finding a way to pay for college.”

Larry Joe Fitzpatrick was certain he had saved his guidance counselor a ton of work. Even before the start of his senior year at Lawrence County High School in 2005, his college planning was already finished.

“I was not going to college,” Fitzpatrick said. “I didn’t think I’d ever make it into college, so I was just going to go to work after graduation.”

Luanne Finley, a Lawrence County guidance counselor, remembers thinking that Fitzpatrick would either join the military or go to a technical school. “He was in ROTC, and he liked to work on cars,” she said.

For Fitzpatrick, who lives in the small eastern Kentucky town of Martha, it was enough that he would soon be achieving another important goal — becoming the first member of his family to graduate from high school.

“I’m one of 13 kids,” he said. “Six sisters, seven brothers, and I’m the first one to graduate.”

Enter Amy McLoney, KHEAA’s outreach counselor for North Eastern Kentucky. McLoney visited Lawrence County High School in the fall of 2005 to train students and staff on using the GoHigherKY website.

The GoHigherKY website was new at the time, Finley said, so they were registering the whole student body on the site. The school just does the training for freshmen now.

“That was the first time I ever saw him interested in college,” Finley said. “The day we were training on GoHigher, I remember he turned around and looked at me and said, ‘Do you think I could go to college?’”

The next day, Finley brought Fitzpatrick into her office for an in-depth training session on the website. “I’ll be honest,” he said, “I didn’t understand a lot of what was on there, and I was stubborn. But Ms. Finley sat me down and made me look at it. She broke it all down and explained it to me.”

Fitzpatrick said the breakthrough moment came when he was completing GoHigher’s Interest Finder exercise (under Career Center), the program that identifies a student’s aptitudes and interests and matches them with a career.

“Education matched first,” he said. “That’s the cool part about it. My teachers had always told me that I’d make a good teacher because I was good working with (underclassmen).”

Fitzpatrick, who averaged three sports a year in high school, said that picking physical education as his major was a no-brainer. Finding the right college, however, took a little more time.

“I use the GoHigher and KHEAA websites almost on a daily basis,” Finley said, adding that it’s more convenient for her to link to college websites from GoHigher rather than retype the website name every time. It was from GoHigherKY that Finley and Fitzpatrick linked to the websites of schools close to Lawrence County. He chose Alice Lloyd College.

“We found out from an Alice Lloyd financial advisor that he qualified for veterans’ benefits,” Finley said. Because his father is a disabled Vietnam veteran, Fitzpatrick qualifies for a waiver from Alice Lloyd, which will allow him to complete his education free of tuition or loans.

Fitzpatrick, now 18, is currently into his second semester as a freshman at Alice Lloyd, but he hasn’t forgotten the encouragement he received in high school. “My coaches and teachers cared. So many people have helped me hang in there,” he said, remembering the 45-minute bus rides to and from school every day. “Now my goal is to help other students.”

Fitzpatrick also remembers the GoHigherKY training that first sparked his college dreams. “Any student who thinks they can’t go to college should look at it,” he said. “Give it a chance.”

This article originally appeared in the January 2007 GoHigherKY.org newsletter as “GoHigherKY.org sparks college dreams.” It appears here courtesy of GoHigherKy.org, Kentucky’s statewide online college planning resource, KHEAA and The Student Loan People.

Prospective students and their families don’t want to miss College Goal Sunday, to be held across Kentucky this Sunday, January 28 at 2 p.m. The event offers free help filling out the federal application for student financial aid (FAFSA). College Goal Sunday is sponsored by the Kentucky Association of Student Financial Aid Administrators (KASFAA), in cooperation with the Kentucky Higher Education Assistance Authority (KHEAA). Representatives from KHEAA and colleges and universities throughout Kentucky will be on hand at 20 sites in 19 communities to offer assistance filling out forms and answer common financial aid questions.

Three AIKCU campuses - Brescia University, Campbellsville University, Thomas More College, and Union College - are serving as College Goal Sunday sites. Click here for a full list of locations and directions.