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May 31, 2017
Summer scholarship to push for four-year graduate rates By Miki Shine E D I T O R
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A new scholarship being offered to seniors to improve graduation rates could push USF closer to achieving preeminence. The scholarship is geared toward students who plan to complete their final 12 credit hours over summer, and it covers all tuition and fees while also ensuring access to required texts. Specifically, it’s being offered to students who started in summer or fall of 2013 and , which directly impacts USF’s four-year graduation rate for pre-eminence. The scholarship is geared toward students who plan to complete their final 12 credit hours over summer, and it covers all tuition and fees while also ensuring access to required texts.
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“We certainly believe we are on the path to pre-eminence,” Paul Dosal, vice president of Student Affairs, said. “My role is to promote student success. I’ve been promoting this for seven years anyway. We’re on the path, to me it’s just a question of when.” USF was hoping to meet the state’s pre-eminence requirements this year, but legislative changes recently excluded the university’s eligibility.pushed that back. During this past term, the Florida Legislature looked at changing one of the requirements from a six-year graduation rate at 70 percent to a four-year graduation rate at 50 percent. USF’s four-year graduation rate is 56 percent. However, a change on the last day of the session pushed the benchmark up to a four-
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year graduation rate at 60 percent. The current expected date for USF to reach this benchmarkhat is for the 2020 school year. Along with the title of preeminence, USF would also split a pool of state funding with UF and FSU that was $48 million for this year. Provost Ralph Wilcox said in an interview with The Oracle that the funds from achieving pre-eminence would mostly be going toward hiring more professors. As it is, the new scholarship is currently only offered to seniors graduating this summer as a pilot program. “If the pilot system is positive, we’ll certainly look at building financial incentives into our tuition structure. Whatever that looks like,” Dosal said. According to Dosal, this scholarship is a continuation of programs that encourage students to graduate in four years, such as the Take 15 campaign and Finish in Four, Save More. The difference, he said, is the financial incentive. To take 12 credit hours costs in-state students $2,534.28 and out-of-state students $6,900.12 in tuition and fees. Dosal said approximately 150 students had registered to receive the scholarship;, which also includes long-term textbook check-out from the library is also included. Students who possiblycould qualify received an email, and phone calls are now being made to try to recruit get more students to registered. Dosal and university spokesman Adam Freeman weren’t sure how many students would need to graduate during summer to achieve a 60 percent
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