CHARLESTON, W.Va. — There are more than 1,000 students enrolled in fall semester classes in the state’s community and technical colleges that are using the new West Virginia Invests Grant to pay the final dollars of their tuition bills.
Members of the state Community and Technical College Council received the final breakdown of award numbers during a meeting Thursday in Charleston.
State lawmakers created WV Invests earlier this year. The program pays what’s left of a two-year program’s tuition for students enrolled in certain programs. Students have to pass a drug test and meet other requirements.
State Community and Technical College Chancellor Sarah Tucker said 5,192 people applied for the program with 1,008 student actually receiving the award and another 1,200 applicants who found out by going through the process that other financial aid would pay their full bills. She said that means 2,200 students are in community and technical colleges today because of WV Invests.
MORE Read the breakdown of the numbers here
“This grant is helping to drive people to get into professions that they can then take those jobs (where there’s a need). I’m thrilled to see that happen,” Tucker said.
The highest number of grant winners are enrolled in nursing, health sciences and criminal justice programs. There are also students in the IT fields, cyber security and electric utility technology.
Tucker said they didn’t have much time to get the program up and running. She said it’s likely many state residents don’t know about it. She said that will be the focus in the coming months.
“We’re going to employ four AmeriCorps volunteers across the sate. They’re going to be our ‘college champions’ and will talk about all financial aid options,” Tucker said. “We know that there are people in barbershops and churches who are advising students about their futures and we want to make sure those people are armed with the information they need to in order to advise appropriately.”
Tucker said most of the awards, 832, went to applicants under the age of 24. Pierpont CTC, Bridgevalley CTC and Blue Ridge CTC have the most award winners as students.
All of the community and technology college presidents are scheduled to sit down soon with Tucker and her staff to review the numbers and look at ways to deal with glitches.
“Once we get those worked out we’ll be off and running,” Tucker said.
The numbers show 689 of the applicants filled out a form for the award but never registered with a college making them ineligible.