Many students at Saginaw Valley State University didn’t even know their Michigan Promise Scholarship was in jeopardy this fall, Julie A. Boon says.
Despite funding for the scholarship not being on the final bills of the budget signed by Gov. Jennifer Granholm, the 19-year-old Boon and her fellow students won’t have to worry about it — at least until next semester.
That’s because SVSU officials have decided to, in essence, eat the cost of the scholarship that was promised to college students around the state for the fall and not require those students to pay it back.
The nearly 1,400 SVSU students who were credited to receive Promise funds this fall will have those monies paid for by the university.
“We believe it would be terribly unfair to them and their families, who believed in good faith that these scholarships would be fully paid, to now require them to pay retroactively,” SVSU President Eric R. Gilbertson said. “Therefore, the University is prepared to absorb this as a $700,000 ‘hit’ to its own budget. This is obviously painful, as those funds could have been used for a variety of good and important purposes.”