Unity College to offer $2,000 scholarships to Mainers

By JOEL ELLIOTT
Staff Writer

12/21/2007

UNITY -- Unity College announced it will begin offering $2,000 scholarships to all Maine students who apply for enrollment in 2008.

College administrators, inspired by a program from the Harold Alfond Foundation to award $500 scholarships to each child born in Maine, decided to launch the program in an effort to increase the number of Mainers who go to college.

They are hoping that other colleges will also begin offering more funding in a bid to reverse a trend of students finishing high school but not continuing on to college due to a lack of funding, according to Unity College Vice President for College Advancement Rob Constantine.

Rob Constantine, Vice President for College Advancement

"We're very excited at Unity to be able to offer this, and to do our piece, but really we are just following the lead of the Alfond Foundation," he said, adding that college plans to issue the grants indefinitely. "The more students from Maine who apply, which is what we are hoping, we are happy to welcome them."

Other Maine colleges do offer scholarships with a preference for Maine students, although specifics vary. Bates College has at least 30 such endowed scholarships. Colby College has more than 125 established funds or scholarships designated specifically for Maine students. Bowdoin and Thomas colleges also provide funding with a preference for Maine students.

Unity's move of providing funding to any and all Maine students is a bold step toward making higher education more accessible to residents in the state, according to Greg Powell, who serves as chairman of the Harold Alfond Foundation.

"Unity has stepped up here with a wonderful idea to offer a break on tuition for Maine students," Powell said. "Unity is a wonderful college, and the Alfond Foundation is delighted to hear that they are making this program available to help Maine residents be able to go to college."

Known as "America's Environmental College," Unity in its last admissions class enrolled just over 200 students, according to Constantine. Sixty-three of them were from Maine, despite the fact that Unity had accepted 123. Unity's aim is to decrease the number of potential students who decide against enrolling because of a lack of funding, Constantine said.

College officials "can rattle off examples of students who were accepted, but didn't go because of financial reasons," he said. He added that Unity is proud to join the Alfond Foundation to attempt to "start reversing the trends we are seeing, which is that fewer and fewer Maine students are enrolling in college."