MCC Promise scholarship on hiatus

A month before she graduated from Cary-Grove High School, Paulien Ruys learned that McHenry County College was no longer offering its Promise scholarship.

Ruys, of Cary, wanted to take a full course load, but without the scholarship to cover tuition she could only afford a single math course this term.

"I have to pay for it myself and I just got my first job in May," said Ruys, who works at a local Office Max to cover tuition both this semester and hopefully 12 credits the following semester.

The Friends of the MCC Foundation, which runs the scholarship, is not accepting new students into the program because the college is still trying to sort out which ones filled out the required state and federal financial aid forms in time to receive the scholarship.

Although the state and federal agencies may have received the applications on time, they didn't alert MCC they'd gotten the documents until after both deadlines passed, said Bill Brennan, the foundation's interim executive director.

That means school authorities aren't sure who met the deadlines and who didn't, Brennan said.

The discrepancy affects 180 students, and the financial aid office is going through every application to determine which ones actually met the deadlines - those who turned everything in on time will receive scholarships, Brennan said.

Right now, 175 MCC students remain on scholarship and the foundation has enough money to cover their tuition, he said.

Private donations fund the scholarships and there is $1.1 million remaining - the foundation has thus far spent $1.3 million on the scholarships.

The program began in fall 2009 and in exchange for tuition money, students had to remain at the school full-time, perform 16 hours of community service each semester within McHenry County and maintain a certain grade point average: 2.0 on a 4-point scale in the first semester, 2.5 in the second semester, 2.75 in the third and 3.0 in the fourth.

In the first year of the program, students recorded more than 23,000 hours of volunteer work in the community, Brennan said.

Out of the roughly 1,100 incoming freshmen who entered the school in fall 2009, 940 were scholarship recipients, he said.

Without the scholarship, students living within the district pay $82 per credit, while those outside it pay $305.09 a credit.

The foundation has not yet determined when it will reinstate the program.

But within the next two months, its representatives will meeting with donors, the Promise committee and Vicky Smith, the new president of MCC to "outline what we think would be a cool new program for the students," Brennan said.

"When we do reintroduce this program, it's going to be even better than before," he said.