NPC Foundation’s Mission: Help Students Pay For College

The Independent

WHITE MOUNTAINS — The Northland Pioneer College Foundation is always looking for donations for its scholarships programs. The need is to help them award deserving students scholarships towards their college educations.

Executive Director Lance Chugg said the foundation is presently giving out about 50 scholarships to students from 17 White Mountain communities every year, but they could probably award another 50 if they had the money.

A lot of the donations in the past came from things like the NPC Foundation Golf Tournament held in the fall at the Pinetop Country Club. Chugg said corporate donations to events like golf tournaments have waned during the recession as have participating golfers. Because of that decrease in participation the foundation is taking a more one-on-one approach and looking to community members for donations.

The thing that helps them put 100 percent of donations towards scholarships is that the NPC building in Holbrook functions as an endowment, according to Chugg. That means they can use 100 percent of donations for their Completion and Presidential Scholars Books Scholarships instead of having to use some of it to help cover operating costs as do some organizations.

The foundation’s Presidential Books Scholarship goes to currently enrolled students to help offset the ever-increasing cost of textbooks.

All 50 of their current recipients are the top graduates from their respective high schools.

Those high school are out of communities like Pinetop-Lakeside, Show Low and Heber-Overgaard to name just three.

Chugg said they are helping students from all over the White Mountains.

Chugg said one of the foundation’s goals is to help those students stay in the community per their own stated own desires.

Chugg said by awarding them scholarships it reinforces community bonds. Reinforcing those bonds is a significant incentive for them to stay or return once they have completed a degree and go to work locally or open a successful business.

Chugg said it is a win-win for all involved as well as the White Mountain community at large because it helps keep the knowledge and expertise gained by the students here once they have completed their education.

That translates to better economic opportunities for everyone in the community, Chugg said.

The Completion Scholarships focus on providing some education dollars to people who started a program some years ago but for whatever reason were unable to complete it.

Those typically older students have taken numerous classes over the years which often has them with too many community college credits to qualify for federal educational grant money like a Pell grant.

The Federal Pell Grant Program provides need-based grants to low-income undergraduate and certain postbaccalaureate students to promote access to postsecondary education. Unlike financial aid loans, Pell grants do not have to be repaid.

But that is not an option for most of the students who would be recipients of NPC Foundation Completion Scholarships.

In those cases the only recourse other than the Completion Scholarship would be to pay for it themselves, which is cost prohibitive for many.

Given the current state of the economy and tight family budgets, it is more likely that only the scholarship would allow those people to complete their educations.

That would be a losing situation for everyone, according to Chugg.

The average NPC Foundation per-semester scholarship amounts to about $250. Chugg said if they could bring in an additional $25,000 a year to the existing resources, the foundation would be able to handle the 100 scholarships. To do that Chugg said they would need $35,000. He said $25,000 may seem like a lot of money, and it is. But all it would take is for a donor to skip about two cups of store-bought coffee per week and give it to the foundation they would have the resources to give out more scholarships to deserving students.

Reach the reporter at mleiby@wmicentral.com