College comes tuition free for 27 students
Twenty-seven Warren County High School graduates are currently attending Motlow College or Tennessee Technology Center tuition free thanks to the Citizens for Progress scholarship program.
In the scholarship program’s first year, 42 students applied and 27 qualified for funds.
‘It’s gone better than we expected,’ said school system director of instruction Bobby Cox, one of the driving forces behind getting the program started. ‘We had a lot of people who showed interest at the very beginning, and as we started going through the qualification process it seemed to pick up momentum.’
Cox said organizers are continually working to maintain funding for the program.
‘We’re still working on our state funding,’ Cox said. ‘There are some things we’ve got to do to comply with what the state wants to do, and then hopefully we can keep the seed money that we’ve got and then next year just continue to expand.’
Two of the students receiving the scholarship, Corey Warden and Rebekah Mahoney, made an appearance at the recent Warren County Commission meeting to inform commissioners in person how much they appreciate the county’s efforts to help them continue their education. In addition a testimonial from another recipient, Matthew Stubblefield, was read on the floor.
In addition to the Chamber of Commerce and local government, the program has benefited greatly from the support of local businesses and industry through the participation of organizations like the Business Roundtable Action Committee, which has been instrumental in helping to raise funds and awareness.
BRAC chairman Todd Herzog said he feels the program has been a great success in its inaugural year.
‘We actually have 27 students in the Citizens for Progress scholarship program,’ Herzog said. ‘There are 26 at Motlow and one at the Technology Center. Another 15 applied and would have been granted scholarship aid, but in the final analysis they didn’t need it.’
This is because Citizens for Progress is a ‘last dollar’ type scholarship, which means once all other scholarship funds are utilized Citizens for Progress will cover the balance of tuition fees.
‘Considering we only became official in early August of last year, we were pretty pleased with those figures,’ Herzog said, noting Motlow was also impressed with the quality of the students who applied, the majority of which had 3.5 GPAs from high school, according to local Motlow campus director Melody Edmonds.
Herzog says he believes the program has succeeded admirably in achieving its main goals.
‘We wanted to give some of the top students in Warren County a reason to stay in this county, to get educated in this county, and to live here and make a difference in the longer term,’ Herzog said. ‘We kept a lot of good kids here that might not have stayed here had it not been for this program.’
The reaction of the students to the new program supported this assessment, as evidenced by Stubblefield’s letter, which was addressed to Citizens for Progress organizers.
‘Thank you for selecting me for this scholarship,’ Stubblefield wrote. ‘The money will allow me to continue with my education after Motlow. The money is greatly appreciated but this scholarship means much more to me than the financial assistance. I will be the first one to admit I did not apply myself in high school. Now I see the importance of an education. I cannot undo my high school years, but I can make a difference in college. By selecting me, you are saying you have the confidence in me that I can succeed. That means more to me than anything else.’