Let’s face it. Student financial aid is complicated and we all just want to figure out the best way to help students complete their higher education without crippling student debt. Years ago we got wind of a practice known as scholarship award displacement. If you have never heard of that before, don’t worry, we hadn’t either. Here’s the definition:
Scholarship Award Displacement: Occurs when receipt of one form of student financial aid, such as a Central Scholarship private scholarship, leads to a reduction in other forms of student financial aid, such as institutional scholarships.
Essentially, Central Scholarship recipients who received great grades, did their own scholarship research, wrote beautiful application essays, made it through interviews, and finally received a Central Scholarship private scholarship, could have their institutional scholarships reduced as a result. This could happen because a student is required by law to report all private scholarships to their university, so if a student received $5,000 from Central Scholarship, their university scholarship could be reduced by $5,000. It’s a wash for the student. We felt compelled to speak up about this issue, but through this process we could never have imagined the leadership public and private educational institutions in Maryland would show.
Public Institutions: Our first milestone was in 2017, when Maryland passed statewide legislation to restrict scholarship award displacement at four-year public institutions. Students who earn private scholarships will no longer have their institutional scholarships reduced at Maryland’s four-year public colleges and universities, which are:
Bowie State University
Coppin State University
Frostburg State University
Morgan State University
Salisbury University
St. Mary’s College of Maryland
Towson University
University of Baltimore
University of Maryland Eastern Shore
University of Maryland, Baltimore County
University of Maryland, College Park
University of Maryland University College
Private Institutions: Then, in November 2018, private Maryland educational institutions stepped up in a big way and took the bold step of restricting award displacement for Central Scholarship and CollegeBound Foundation scholarships. We are so proud to work with private Maryland institutions who did not hesitate to commit to such an initiative. It’s an honor to partner with:
Capital Technology University
Goucher College
Hood College
Johns Hopkins University
Loyola University of Maryland
Maryland Institute College of Art
McDaniel College
Mount St. Mary’s University
Notre Dame of Maryland University
St. John’s College
Stevenson University
Washington Adventist University
Washington College