Amanda Hand is one of many local residents who benefitted from the services of Cook County Higher Education. She is pictured here receiving her teaching licensure from the College of St. Scholastica in 2016.
Cook County Higher Education (CCHE) has received an $85,000 grant from the Lloyd K. Johnson Foundation. Of this request, $55,000 is for student support services for CCHE students and prospective students, and $30,000 is designated as scholarship funds for Cook County distance learning adults, a process administered by the CCHE scholarship committee.
For the past two years the Lloyd K. Johnson Foundation has been generously granting funds to CCHE for student services and scholarships. This year the scholarship portion of the grant was increased by $10,000. This is great news for anyone thinking about starting or completing his or her degree!
The local impact of this grant support was made abundantly clear thanks to an enrollment report CCHE recently submitted to the Minnesota State College and University (MnSCU) Chancellor’s Office. To provide depth, CCHE provided comparative data, pulling enrollment numbers from 2010 and 2014. Although enrollment numbers did not change much, course load did, which helped make the data easy to compare. . In 2010 (prior to Lloyd K. Scholarships), 95 students carried 660 credits from 10 different MnSCU institutions. . In 2014, 94 students carried 956 credits from 15 different MnSCU institutions.
CCHE Executive Director Paula Sundet Wolf noted, “Please keep in mind that approximately 25 percent of our students take classes at more than one institution, so this information represents approximately 75 students in each year. Even so, the results clearly demonstrate the impact of Lloyd K. Johnson Scholarships. Thanks to Lloyd K. Johnson scholarships, our local students increased their course load by 45 percent.”
All scholarship recipients are living and working in Cook County, added Sundet Wolf. “If you talk to any of these students, they will quickly tell you it is a lot of hard work! “Most of the students have families and a job–many continuing to work full time. It can take six years or more to complete a four-year degree, and three to four years to complete a two-year degree.
“That is why the Lloyd K. Johnson Foundation provides student support funding in addition to the scholarship funds. Student support is more than just financial assistance. It includes consultations for program search and selection, vocation options, disability services, etc.,” said Sundet Wolf.
CCHE spends 12 to 27 hours per student prior to enrollment, and an additional five to 30 hours per student after enrollment. In addition, each student receives a mentor referral recommendation, a pass key for after hour access to the facility and technology, and can participate in arranged study group or study skills workshops.
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