You dedicated four years to studying, preparing and planning for your future career. You have completed almost all your college classes, finished your internship, and now you are a semester away from graduation. But wait! An unexpected emergency happens, and financially you are unable to pay your final tuition bill. All your hopes and dreams are going to be put on hold.
It is a scenario that happens across college campuses. To help address the problem, Kent State University implemented a pilot program that has now been expanded to the Kent Completion and Success Program, funded by a new grant from the Great Lakes Higher Education Guaranty Corporation.
Watch WKYC-TV’s story with a grant recipient
Kent State is one of 14 colleges to receive a combined $2.6 million in College Completion Grants from Great Lakes. The fund provides an opportunity to focus on seniors - including low-income, first-generation, students of color, and students with unexpected emergencies – to explore ways to stay on track to graduation.
The grants support the planning, launch and implementation of interventions at each college from January 2017 to July 2019. The colleges will serve a combined 7,000 students who have completed at least 75 percent of their program's requirements in high-demand fields where positions remain unfilled, such as nursing, information technology and business.