Most students attend Moraine Valley because the price of admission tends to be lower than $40,000 a year. As savvy as they seem, though, there’s a whole world of financial aid students miss every semester.
If you were to print out the list of scholarships shown on the MVCC website, you’d have over ten pages of missed opportunities in your hand. The Bookstore Scholarship, in particular, is looked over every semester even though it receives more publicity than most other grants. The Bookstore Scholarship comes in the form of a $200 gift card that can be used to purchase literally anything in the Moraine Valley Bookstore and every semester the Student Life group has to fight to give them away.
This semester, only $800 of the $1,000 available was given away to students because less than a handful applied, which means that $200 meant for a student went to waste this semester. The application process involves a 300-500-word essay, a reference from professor or adviser of some kind, a copy of your transcript and a 2.5 GPA. The entire process takes less than thirty minutes if you focus on it and yet there’s money every semester going to waste.
“We are doing everything we can. There are fliers and it’s on the websites. We are really blasting the information in the students’ faces; they just need to take the initiatives. If any one has any suggestions we will be happy to take them,” said Dawn Fry, Program Assistant for the Student Life group.
The Bookstore Scholarship isn’t alone, either. Other scholarships are missed either because they’re poorly advertised or because students don’t have enough initiative to follow through with applying for them. The Moraine Valley Community College Leadership Award, for instance, was only sought after by a handful of students last year, with The Glacier’s own Jane Joyce winning the scholarship worth $900 to continue your education and an opportunity to be the student speaker at the graduation ceremony.
Other scholarships, such as Arab American Women and the Center for Disabilities Services awards are aimed at more niche areas of the student body and so could be overlooked. However, there’s a full list of scholarships offered at Moraine online at morainevalley.edu under Financial Aid. There’s also information on how to apply and requirements for each scholarship posted on the website
There isn’t much of a reason to opt out of free money besides having some sort of self-destructive behavior disorder that should be checked out regardless. Everything you need to get started on saving money is right in front of you and in this economy apathy is more poisonous than ever.
“Students are looking for an easy way out,” said Fry, “it’s not like that in college.”
