Central State University Offering Millions In Scholarships To Students From Disadvantaged Backgrounds

Central State University is getting a boost in funding to support students who are low-income, first-generation college students, or who have disabilities.

The $2.2 million grant from the U.S. Department of Education is going to the university’s TRIO Student Support Services (SSS) department. Federal TRIO Programs are designed to identify and aid students from disadvantaged backgrounds.

"Those resources will allow us to do some rather robust, and quite innovative kinds of services to our students," Mortenous A. Johnson, the program’s director at Central State said. "Especially as we try to move through this pandemic and do it in a way that sustains our academic rigor, and do it in a way that, not only can we measure their success, but we can also meet them where they are, and help guide them through this."

The grant allows them to continue the work that started with the formation of Central State's TRIO Program, he said.

“It's important. I stand on this, that we do the very best that we can to ensure that our students, when they arrive, that they have the full basket of services and we do our very best to help them with those services to be successful,” Johnson said.

The TRIO program at Central State was established a little more than 20 years ago and Johnson says its impact on student success rates is significant. The new grant will help the university support more than 250 current students

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