Survey Suggests College Fund Scholarships Important to Student Success
March 29, 2013
The American Indian College Fund commissioned a survey of American Indian College Fund Full Circle scholarship recipients. The goal of the survey was to determine students’ financial need, program retention and completion rates, and respondents’ views regarding the relationship between their college experience and Native cultural perpetuation.
The survey reveals some interesting data about the American Indian College Fund’s Full Circle Scholarship students completing the survey:
- more than half of survey respondents had household incomes twice as low as national age comparison groups;
- 82% of Full Circle Scholarship recipients completed their degrees (almost double that of the closest national comparison data);
- survey respondents had a higher grade point average than the general college population (3.35 compared to 3.10, respectively);
- and tribal college respondents felt their college experience had a greater effect on cultural perpetuation than mainstream college respondents.
While this study cannot establish the direct causality of the American Indian College Fund’s Full Circle scholarship’s influence on educational success and cultural perpetuation, the comparison of scholarship recipients’ results to other populations offers suggestive evidence of the critical importance of Full Circle scholarships.
The summary of the report and full version of published report are now available online. For a printed copy of the report, please contact Carolynn Reed at 303-426-8900.
