McLean County Times

Country Financial and Heartland Community College Foundation are linking up to help high school students with their college endeavors.

The new scholarship called Country Financial Scholars Program covers up to 18 credit hours of dual enrollment and dual credit classes per year for 12 Bloomington-Normal area students interested in pursuing science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) fields, business or agriculture.

"It's a great supplement for students who may want to take classes that aren't available in their high schools and who want to advance more —even all the way to the completion of an associate's degree," Heartland Enrollment and Student Services Vice President Sarah Diel-Hunt said, WGLT.org reported.

The program highlights students who traditionally can't afford early college, Diel-Hunt said.

"What we were noticing with that is an equity issue," Diel-Hunt said. "The students taking those credits are the ones that can afford to pay cash for them because high school students who haven't graduated yet are not eligible for federal financial aid … So we had a real haves and have-nots situation occurring."

Alauna McGee, director of early college opportunities, emphasized that reducing the cost, expediting the time to completion, lining up studies with college and workplace expectations, and making the high school to college transition more straightforward are vital factors to student's completing a college degree.

"We often find that there's quite a significant gap in between secondary education and post-secondary education or higher education," McGee said, WGLT reported. "We wholeheartedly believe that early exposure and early access gives us, parents, and students an opportunity to really add in some preventative measures, if necessary, for remediation — as well as to help other students who may not need those measures excel even further and faster."

These types of programs heighten degree attainment in underserved communities.

To qualify, students must have a minimum of a 3.0 GPA on a 4.0 scale and is a junior or senior from Unit 5 of Bloomington High School or University High. They must show financial strain marked by free or reduced lunch. They must also be a first-generation student, racial or ethnic minority student, or a female.