Heart of Detroit Tuition Pledge

This is from the horse’s mouth: “Introducing the Heart of Detroit Tuition Pledge, which offers free tuition for 2020 graduates of Detroit high schools or Detroit residents earning a high school diploma in 2020.” That’s it. It is just that simple.

Naysayers concocted machinations that students would surely have to go through to reap this benefit. Not so wrote Chair of the Board of Governors Kim Trent on an Oct. 23rd Facebook post that I call “calm down the conspiracy theory y’all”: She sed, “The good news is that this tuition pledge is not too good to be true. It required ingenuity and hard work from our team at WSU. This is a program that is going to give Detroiters of all economic backgrounds an opportunity to get a top-notch college degree without starting their lives with a mountain of debt.”

Wayne states that “Heart of Detroit builds on programs such as Detroit Promise, Wayne Access and Warrior Way Back to expand opportunities to Detroit youth.”

The eligibility criteria is:

• Be admitted to Wayne State University as a first-time, full-time freshman in fall 2020 or after.
• Live in the city of Detroit (verified by mailing address) and graduate from high school in 2020 or after, or, graduate from any Detroit high school (public, private, charter, parochial, home school or GED program) in 2020 or after.
• Complete the Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA) by March 1 for the following fall.
• Students must also join the Raise Me to earn micro-scholarships by completing student success activities.

Then to remain eligible, students must:

• “Meet all satisfactory academic progress requirements, including maintaining full-time enrollment (12 or more credit hours per semester) during the fall and winter semesters.
• They must pass at least 30 credits per academic year.”

That’s all folks!

Come get these degrees!

Full disclosure: The author teaches journalism at Wayne and is thrilled to see students take advantage of scholarship programs!