According to Richard Liedtke, the executive director of enrollment management at Washburn, the most important thing on a student’s road to graduation is to remain enrolled in each semester consecutively. As a response, Washburn has been on a mission to provide the resources to students that both encourage and reward enrollment for the Spring 2022 semester.

This is being done via a series of giveaways funded by Washburn with prizes such as: $500 Book Vouchers, $1,000 scholarship for attendees of the drop in registration event at Mabee that took place Nov. 17, 2021 and even three full-time tuition scholarships.

The only criteria to be entered in these giveaways was to enroll before Thanksgiving break for the book vouchers and full-time tuition prizes, and attend the drop-in registration event for the $1,000 scholarships. There will be 25 winners of $500 book vouchers for each week in November before Thanksgiving break, making 100 winners in total. Five lucky students will be rewarded $1,000 scholarships for their attendance at the drop-in registration event, and three full-time students will be bestowed a scholarship that covers up to 15 credit hours of their tuition costs. Winners will be announced on Dec. 20, 2021, and the scholarships will be applied to student accounts by Feb. 1, 2022.

As the one who manages the scholarship budget and the organizer of this project, Liedtke decided that he could use the money within Washburn’s scholarships budget to encourage student enrollment. Meaning that the money funding the giveaway is not coming from any other place, and should have no reason to financially strain any other department of the university.

“I put the dilemma to them. I’ve got some funds here that we can expend. How best can we use those funds to encourage our students to enroll?” Liedtke said. “I wanted to do something meaningful to help students continue to enroll.”

For any student who is not lucky enough to win a giveaway and is worried about how to pay for the next semester it is important to look into scholarships. Drew Beets, Washburn’s financial literacy coordinator, shared several tips on scholarship hunting. The most important guideline to follow concerns safety, according to Beets. A legitimate scholarship should never require payment in order to apply, and remain cautious while giving personal information.

He also explained that beyond Washburn scholarships, there are abundant opportunities out in the world. Many organizations reach out to Washburn asking for applicants. However, because it isn’t realistic or sustainable to keep outsourced scholarships up to date on the Washburn website, many community scholarships remain inadequately advertised.

To search for these opportunities, Beets recommended using many mediums such as Google search using reputable sites, and networking with family, friends, professors, and peers to learn more about the potential openings.

“Organizations have scholarships, and have funding for students. They generally don’t have great public relations and outreach,” Beets said. “It’s worth the time, because their application pools are comically small.”

Edited by Ellie Walker, Kyle Manthe