Students at UA Little Rock next year will have the chance to get their four-year college degree entirely paid for.
School officials announced the new program, called Trojan Guarantee, in an event on campus Wednesday. Jonathan Coleman, UA Little Rock’s director of financial aid and scholarships, says this builds upon existing efforts to make college more affordable.
“[In] fall of 2021 we implemented our half off scholarship, which has been a huge benefit to the university and to prospective students, but we felt like it wasn’t enough,” Coleman said. “To kind of one-up ourselves, we decided the best thing we could do was to implement something that went just a little bit further.”
Students must receive money from the federal Pell Grant and the Arkansas Challenge Scholarship in order to qualify. Coleman says, though Pell Grant eligibility is required, the Trojan Guarantee is available to students with varying levels of need.
“We have students that receive $20 on a Pell Grant. That student is just as eligible for Trojan Guarantee as the student that gets the maximum amount of Pell Grant,” he said.
Students must enroll in the fall 2024 semester at UA Little Rock as a first-time freshman in order to receive the scholarship. Recipients must enroll as full-time students throughout their four-year degree plan and maintain a 2.5 grade point average to keep the scholarship.
Coleman says he expects about 200 students to qualify for the program in its first year, at a cost of about $1 million.
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