On July 8, Governor Tom Wolf signed into law HB1642, a sprawling public school system bill which includes a ban on scholarship displacement at public colleges and universities. This makes Pennsylvania the fourth state in the country to eliminate the practice of colleges and universities reducing a student’s financial aid package when the student receives a private scholarship.
A statewide coalition of scholarship providers, including the Community Foundation of Fayette County (CFFC), initiated the call for elimination of scholarship displacement in 2018. CFFC Executive Director Renee Couser explained, “As a community foundation, our duty is to carry out our donors’ intent when they entrust us with their charitable giving. When we award a scholarship to a student on behalf of a donor, and the university then reduces that student’s financial aid package, that essentially eliminates the scholarship’s benefit to the student and defeats our donor’s purpose in awarding the scholarship.”
The coalition included members of the Pennsylvania Community Foundation Association, the Miss Pennsylvania Scholarship Foundation, the Philadelphia College Prep Roundtable, and Pittsburgh’s Poise Foundation. State legislature and the governor took steps to address scholarship displacement, resulting in HB1642 being signed into law and going into effect immediately.
CFFC awarded over $195,000 to local post-secondary students for the 2022-2023 school year, from 54 scholarship funds. “We shared an information sheet about scholarship displacement to help educate applicants, and we include specific wording in our award letters that request our scholarships to be stacked on top of a student’s financial aid, instead of being displaced,” said CFFC Scholarship Coordinator Lee O’Neil. Now, this practice will be banned at public colleges and universities, and the conversation will continue to educate students, school administrators, and donors.
Read the Herald-Standard article
