Alumni Full Tuition Merit Scholarship Fundraising Initiative

Approved 3/19/2015

Goal

One significant feature of an early Olin College experience was the full tuition merit scholarship, which was made available to the first eight Olin classes. Following the economic challenges of 2008, the scholarship was reduced to a half tuition scholarship. Olin College alumni remain passionate about the opportunities afforded by the full tuition scholarship and would like to see it reinstated.

This fundraising effort is designed to raise funds for merit scholarships to reduce the cost of attending Olin. The primary donors for this fund would be alumni; however, this fund is available for any donor to support. The eventual intent of this scholarship fund is to reinstate the full tuition merit scholarship.

Impact

By reducing the cost of Olin, we make Olin’s world class education available to the widest variety of students possible. Graduating debt free enables alumni to pursue their passions and concentrate on career and life advancement without the worries of debt. Alumni have expressed a desire to help students and Olin College by supporting this initiative. Organizing alumni believe that this scholarship will have widespread appeal and will increase alumni giving.

Implementation

In order to address these issues, a group of Alumni has created the Alumni Full Tuition Merit Scholarship Fund. Donations to this fund will initially be collected into a temporarily restricted fund, but not spent, until the minimum as stated below is reached.

If the fund has reached $125,000 by June 30, 2018, it will be endowed, but will continue to be open to receiving new gifts. Once the fund is endowed, gift principal must remain intact in perpetuity, and accumulated earnings on the fund will be available to be spent for the stated restricted purpose of merit scholarships. Each year after the fund is endowed, merit scholarships will be awarded to all students in their 8th semester. The college can award these scholarships at their discretion, in consultation with Alumni Gift Representatives, within the following guidelines:

• During any given semester, all full-time students must receive equal merit scholarship awards from this fund and students must be otherwise eligible for scholarships based on Olin’s institutional policy.
• In no event will scholarships of less than $75 per student per year be awarded.
• Should the accumulated earnings not be sufficient to award all students in their 8th semester $75 each, no scholarships will be awarded that year.

The alumni representatives of this fund will review the fund balance with College administration periodically to determine whether the fund has grown to the level where the scholarships can be expanded beyond just the 8th semester students. It is agreed that these funds in the Alumni Merit Scholarship Fund will be incremental to the college’s scholarship budget

An alumni group will be responsible for fundraising for this scholarship in collaboration with the Office of Development, Family and Alumni Relations. Olin College has agreed that this alumni merit scholarship will be listed with other gift opportunities in Olin fund-raising communication.

If the fund has not reached $125,000 by June 30, 2018, then the funds collected to date will transfer to the college’s unrestricted fund.