{"id":1973,"date":"2019-03-15T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2019-03-15T00:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.mtsu.edu\/blogtest\/mtsu-leads-state-in-service-to-at-risk-students\/"},"modified":"2026-04-15T15:37:46","modified_gmt":"2026-04-15T20:37:46","slug":"mtsu-leads-state-in-service-to-at-risk-students","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.mtsu.edu\/president\/mtsu-leads-state-in-service-to-at-risk-students\/","title":{"rendered":"MTSU leads state in service to at-risk students"},"content":{"rendered":"
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You may have heard or read that the University of Tennessee System announced Thursday that students eligible for Pell Grant aid (family income of $50,000 or less), and who qualify for the HOPE Lottery Scholarship, can attend one of their institutions without paying tuition or mandatory fees.<\/p>\n

I\u2019m proud to say that MTSU students in this category have attended our institution for years without paying tuition or mandatory fees. Our Admissions and Financial Aid teams are among the best at helping our at-risk students qualify for the full range of federal and state scholarships and assistance. About 50 percent of our students receive Pell aid (in contrast, about 30 percent of UT-Knoxville\u2019s population receive Pell aid).<\/p>\n

That\u2019s why we are a destination of choice for first-generation college students. And we\u2019ve done all of this while raising our admissions standards and setting records on average ACT scores of our incoming freshmen.<\/p>\n

It is interesting to note that according to a recent New York Times database, the median family income of a student from\u00a0Middle Tennessee State\u00a0is\u00a0$71,700, and\u00a025%\u00a0come from the top 20 percent of income strata. According to the same database, the median family income of a student from\u00a0UT-Knoxville\u00a0is\u00a0$96,900, and\u00a042%\u00a0come from the top 20 percent.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s also important to remember that MTSU\u2019s full-time undergraduate\u00a0tuition\u00a0and fees of $9,206 for the Fall 2018 and Spring 2019 semesters remains the\u00a0lowest\u00a0of the state\u2019s three largest universities. University of Tennessee-Knoxville charges $13,006, while the University of Memphis charges $9,701.\u00a0Our affordability makes MTSU more accessible to students from all income levels seeking a top-tier educational experience.<\/p>\n

And, this year, we substantially increased the value and broadened eligibility of our\u00a0Presidential Scholarship<\/a><\/strong>, which more than doubled the amount we awarded to some high-ability freshmen who will enroll this fall.<\/p>\n

USA Today Network-Tennessee interviewed me in a story on the reaction of other university presidents to the announcement. In short, I said we at MTSU are pleased that UT has joined our university in expressing its commitment to serving the higher education needs of the state\u2019s at-risk students. You can read it here:\u00a0https:\/\/www.dnj.com\/story\/news\/2019\/03\/15\/ut-promise-mtsu-austin-peay-university-memphis-college-scholarships\/3161338002\/#_=_<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

You may have heard or read that the University of Tennessee System announced Thursday that students eligible for Pell Grant aid (family income of $50,000 or less), and who qualify for the HOPE Lottery Scholarship, can attend one of their institutions without paying tuition or mandatory fees. I\u2019m proud to say that MTSU students in […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":338,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1973","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mtsu.edu\/president\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1973","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mtsu.edu\/president\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mtsu.edu\/president\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mtsu.edu\/president\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/8"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mtsu.edu\/president\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1973"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.mtsu.edu\/president\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1973\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3170,"href":"https:\/\/www.mtsu.edu\/president\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1973\/revisions\/3170"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mtsu.edu\/president\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/338"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mtsu.edu\/president\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1973"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mtsu.edu\/president\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1973"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mtsu.edu\/president\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1973"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}