{"id":92336,"date":"2019-10-06T18:03:10","date_gmt":"2019-10-06T18:03:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/fort-lewis-college-paves-way-for-free-tuition-to-lower-income-students\/"},"modified":"2019-10-06T18:03:10","modified_gmt":"2019-10-06T18:03:10","slug":"fort-lewis-college-paves-way-for-free-tuition-to-lower-income-students","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/fort-lewis-college-paves-way-for-free-tuition-to-lower-income-students\/","title":{"rendered":"Fort Lewis College paves way for free tuition to lower-income students"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p><figure class=\"wp-block-image naviga-inline-image\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/imengine.public.prod.dur.navigacloud.com\/?uuid=45dbae22-d0c1-4df0-9a46-7eb072a43f61&amp;function=cover&amp;type=preview&amp;source=false&amp;width=2000\" width=\"1972\" height=\"967\" alt=\"Fort Lewis College will provide free tuition assistance to students from families who earn $60,000 or less.\" class=\"naviga-image\" loading=\"lazy\"><figcaption><span class=\"caption\">Fort Lewis College will provide free tuition assistance to students from families who earn $60,000 or less.<\/span><span class=\"credit\">Courtesy of Fort Lewis College<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p><p>Fort Lewis College announced Friday it will ensure students from working and middle-class families can attend the school tuition-free starting next fall.<\/p>\n<p>The FLC Tuition Promise, a new grant program, will serve first-year and enrolled students from families that earn $60,000 or less, said Michele Peterson, associate vice principal of finance and administration.<\/p>\n<p>The grant program is intended to fill in any financial gaps left after a student receives federal Pell Grants, state financial aid and other scholarships, school officials said Friday during a Board of Trustees meeting.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe biggest concern that students have today is over the cost of education, and I think it\u2019s not just here, it\u2019s a national concern,\u201d said Provost Cheryl Nixon.<\/p>\n<p>The new assistance program is meant to address concerns about cost and fear of debt, and help potential students consider more than the price of the school when making a decision about higher education, she said.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe want to make sure we have that wide-open door to students,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n<p>The program is also expected to help more first-generation students and students from diverse backgrounds attend FLC, she said.<\/p>\n<p>Students with the most financial need can qualify for federal Pell Grants that provide up to $6,195 in annual tuition assistance. But the maximum amount of Pell Grant assistance available does not cover FLC\u2019s annual tuition of $7,056.<\/p>\n<p>The tuition assistance also does not apply to FLC student fees, which are about $1,800 a year.<\/p>\n<p>The school expects about 300 students, about 10% of its student body, will qualify for the additional tuition assistance, Peterson said. The school expects to spend about $50,000 a year on the new aid program from its general funds, she said.<\/p>\n<p>Students will not have to apply for the grant program separately from other financial aid programs.<\/p>\n<p><em class=\"mwc_shirttail\"><a href=\"mailto:mshinn@durangoherald.com\">mshinn@durangoherald.com<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>expects about 300 will qualify for assistance<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":92337,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5794,5921,5737,5736,5735,5741,5817],"tags":[155,132,28,29,4259],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-92336","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-education","category-fort-lewis-college","category-headlines","category-local-news","category-news","category-newsletter","category-newsletter-sign-up","tag-education","tag-fort-lewis-college","tag-headlines","tag-newsletter","tag-newsletter-sign-up"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/92336","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=92336"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/92336\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/92337"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=92336"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=92336"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=92336"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=92336"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}