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August 18, 2021

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By Carmen Boone cboone@newstopicnews.com

Aug 18, 2021 Updated Aug 18, 2021

A new scholarship program aims to encourage people who have interrupted their college education to go back to school.

The Longleaf Complete Grant is part of the Governor’s Emergency Education Relief (GEER) fund that allocated $137.8 million to community colleges in North Carolina for COVID-19 relief.

With the hardships that many students faced during the pandemic, a number of students dropped out of college plans due to financial struggles, said CCC&TI President Mark Poarch.

“This (grant) is an incentive to re-engage individuals in higher education,” he said. “It’s to get folks re-enrolled to move them toward completion and put them out into the workforce.”

To be eligible, students must be North Carolina residents and have completed at least 30 credit hours but not yet have a degree.

The state’s community colleges will have from fall of 2021 to Sept. 30, 2023, to award the funds.

Poarch said that 140 CCC&TI students who were enrolled in the spring of 2020 and had completed 30 credit hours dropped out.

“We are trying to benefit students negatively impacted (by the pandemic),” he said. “This (grant) is a tool to help remove financial barriers and re-engage students.”

Reporter Carmen Boone can be reached at 828-610-8723