Dixie State University representatives are adding more scholarships to increase spring enrollment and offer opportunities to students who attend in the spring.
The three new scholarships added this spring are the Early Graduates from High School Scholarship, the Spring Back Scholarship, and the Fresh Start Scholarship.
In addition to these new spring scholarships, David Roos, executive director of enrollment services, said the Merit Scholarship was added in the fall. The Merit Scholarship is for those students, for example, who have a GPA of 3.0 and an ACT score of 20, Roos said.
“We do these in the spring because we see that we have the flexibility in our schedule to have more students on our campus,” Roos said. He also said that these scholarships are meant to increase spring enrollment and help students who want to come back to school.
Early Graduates from High School Scholarship
The Early Graduates from High School Scholarship is offered to students who graduate from high school in the fall prior to their graduating class and meet the Utah-Resident Freshman Academic Scholarship Program.
Roos said students who graduated high school early didn’t have the opportunity to apply for scholarships because they weren’t offered to students who come in the spring.
This scholarship is also the only one offered to students, while the other two are through a normal online application process, said Joni Hale, assistant director of scholarships.
“[We’re] just making it so that getting ahead of things is being rewarded instead of saying, ‘There’s nothing we could do for you,’” Hale said.
Spring Back Scholarship
The Spring Back Scholarship was created for students who applied to attend DSU but changed their minds and attended a different university or college, and now they want to come back, Roos said.
“What we’re doing with [the Spring Back Scholarship] is if, within the semester, they have changed their mind and want to come back, we’ll honor the scholarship that they would have gotten if they would have been here (in the fall),” Roos said.
Students can apply for this scholarship online, and they need to provide transcripts and ACT or SAT test scores.
“We know that there are students who go somewhere else, and they may say ‘You know what, St. George wasn’t so bad,'” Roos said. “We’re trying to give them a pathway to come back and still be able to afford to come to school.”
Fresh Start Scholarship
Roos said the Fresh Start Scholarship is intended for those who have never attended a university or college, and now they are thinking about attending college.
“[With] the Fresh Start Scholarship, we’re giving you a clean slate that’s based on your grades when you graduated high school,” Hale said. “Normally, they wouldn’t qualify for scholarships until they’ve been here at least a year.”
Hale said the development office is in charge of additional funding for these new scholarships, and they’re still in the process of finding more money to help cover them.
Rebecca Burlett, a freshman general education major from Abingdon, Virginia, said she has a academic scholarship that offers her in state tuition because she had a 4.0 in high school and a high ACT score.
“I like having the scholarship because I can focus on school and not worry about having a lot of debt,” Burlett said. “Also, having a scholarship makes me work hard to get good grades.”
Students can find additional information on scholarships at dixie.edu/financial/scholarships.
“One of the biggest things we can achieve is opening doors for people who didn’t realize they had the opportunity,” Roos said.
