Portland Community College | Portland, Oregon

PCC Foundation close to securing crucial scholarship funds

Photos and story by James Hill

Kelsey Eickhoff has gotten deeper into debt from loans she has taken out to pay for college. But this year, her burden of paying for her classes at Portland Community College has been eased.

Eickhoff is a 2010 recipient of a Miller Foundation Scholarship through the PCC Foundation – money going to pay for tuition and books. It wasn’t until the Tillamook native was pregnant with her second child that she decided to go to college because she realized she had to provide her kids. That was more than five years ago. She is now just a few months away from graduating from the Dental Hygiene Program.

“I have been using loans to pay for my schooling that are not covered by grant money,” Eickhoff said. “I also use loans to pay for part of my living expenses. Receiving a scholarship is such an honor. I feel a great relief knowing that I have less debt being put on loans this year. It makes an enormous difference.”

Thanks to gifts from scholarship donors, for the last two years the PCC Foundation has received $320,000 in matching scholarship funds from the James F. and Marion L. Miller Foundation. The Miller Foundation has extended a challenge for 2010-11, but this is the last year PCC will have to secure such funding to build more scholarships. Since the challenge began three years ago, the Foundation has been able to raise enough money to fund more than 400 additional scholarships.

But the PCC Foundation must raise a total of $320,000 in new and increased scholarship contributions by March 31. If it reaches this goal, it will receive another $320,000 in matching funds from the Miller Foundation. The Foundation is roughly $55,000 away from reaching the goal.

“With the third and final year of the Miller Foundation’s scholarship challenge, we have the opportunity to make it easier for hundreds of students to reach their educational goals,” said PCC District President Preston Pulliams. “We have much left to raise before March 31 in order to earn an additional $320,000 in scholarship funding. But I’m confident we’ll make it.”

Fifty percent of PCC students required financial assistance to attend college. For the average full-time student, one year’s tuition, fees, books and other expenses amount to about $4,500. A two-year degree will total almost $9,000. To help students, the PCC Foundation awards hundreds of scholarships every year to those who may not otherwise be able to afford an education. The Miller Challenge is a chance for the organization to offer many more.

Why the Miller deadline is so important lies with the numbers. It’s no secret that PCC has grown by more than 30 percent in two years and has seen increased enrollment for 14 consecutive terms. And with this surging enrollment, financial need has surged along with it. In 2009-10, PCC had 14,944 Federal Pell Grant recipients that were awarded almost $42 million. To put this in perspective, the college reported having 7,360 recipients in 2007-08, who earned more than $16 million.

A Pell Grant is a post-secondary educational federal grant sponsored by the U.S. Department of Education. These grants, which do not require repayment, are awarded based on a financial need formula determined by criteria submitted through the Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA) form.

The reasons are clear – when the economy went into a slump, people turned to PCC to complete their education, retrain into a new career or supplement their job skills with additional training. However, because household budgets are tight, financial aid applications at the college grew by 75 percent since 2007-08 and more than $136 million in aid dollars was disbursed to PCC students in 2009-10 – $52 million in grants, $82 million in loans and $884,000 in scholarships from the PCC Foundation.

If the PCC Foundation can make this deadline, more students like Eickhoff can get the support they need to finish the training or degree they need to make a difference in the workforce. With federal financial aid and numerous Foundation scholarships to apply for, students are finding more and more ways to support themselves in these rough times.

“I find it so wonderful to see that there are so many places willing to help students get through college by relieving a little bit of the financial stress,” she said.

For more information, visit he PCC Foundation: www.pcc.edu/foundation