Finish Line Grants Reward Hard Work
Lexine is a good nursing student at Central Piedmont Community College who had a problem. An unexpected medical bill, a serious car repair, and a tight budget was forcing her to consider dropping out to work extra hours and pay these bills.
That same hard choice faced Rosalyn, a good Alamance Community College student, working to get her degree in Office Administration. She couldn’t afford a dentist to fix a painfully abscessed tooth that was causing her to choose between school and dental care.
I met both of these hardworking students who are on track to graduate because of Finish Line Grants.
In 2017, I started hearing familiar stories like these from community college leaders around the state. They told me that relatively small, unexpected financial emergencies — a medical bill, a car repair or a childcare expense — were causing people to drop out when they were close to graduation. They were concerned that hardworking students were missing good opportunities for better jobs and employers were losing out on a pipeline of qualified workers.
So, we came up with a solution: Finish Line Grants. These grants provide up to $1,000 to students with good grades who are on track to get their credential or degree. The grants became available in the fall of 2018, and we’ve already seen remarkable success. This week, I announced that the Finish Line Grants program has issued more than 3,000 grants worth more than $2 million to community college students across the state.
Community colleges and local workforce boards coordinate to run their local program. And when students qualify, their grant gets paid directly to the car mechanic or the doctor’s office, allowing them to stay in school and finish their credential instead of dropping out to work extra hours to pay the bill.
It’s not just students who are helped. It’s employers, too. At Alamance Community College, I heard from Robert, who owns a company that does high-tech machining. He has hired Finish Line Grant recipients once they graduate, and he shared that he hires a lot of students from the community college because they’ve earned the necessary credentials to do machining. But he’s also seen a lot of students drop out when a financial need requires them to find work immediately instead of finishing their credentials. For companies like Robert’s, the Finish Line Grant program can help — with more qualified graduates, businesses like Robert’s can grow.
These are just a few of the many remarkable stories I’ve heard about what the Finish Line Grant can do for our hardworking students. I am always amazed at what a relatively small amount of money can change someone’s life forever. Our whole community is made better when students earn the credentials or degrees they need to find a better-paying job that will help them support themselves and their families.
A Finish Line Grant is a reward for hard work. If you’re putting in the hours to improve your skills and open up new opportunities, a car repair shouldn’t compromise your future.
