Community college prepares to offer 56 full-ride scholarships

In the first program of its kind in this state, Shoreline Community College is offering 56 full-ride, two-year scholarships to high-school students in the class of 2015 who live in Shoreline or nearby Lake Forest Park.

Called Shoreline Scholars, the program is modeled after one in Oregon and aimed at students with a grade-point average of at least 3.5 and some level of financial need.

“We want to find the high-performing student who, for whatever reason financially, college is going to be out of reach,” said Shoreline President Cheryl Roberts. Top students, the ones with near-perfect GPAs, are usually courted with merit scholarships and other awards, she said. The lowest-income students often qualify for generous financial-aid packages, such as federal Pell grants or the state’s College Bound program.

Shoreline Scholars students don’t fall into either category but show a lot of promise. One of the program’s goals is to reduce the amount of loans students must take out.

The college’s foundation and one private donor are covering the cost of the program, which is expected to be about $400,000 over two years. Shoreline hopes to be able to offer it every year.

It’s open to all students — even home-schooled and undocumented students who often miss out on aid.

Before she came to Washington, Roberts worked at the Oregon college — Chemeketa Community College in Salem — that Shoreline Scholars is modeled after.

“It was wildly successful there,” she said.

Although Shoreline is the first Washington community college to offer two years of tuition-free study to students in a targeted geographic area, the program bears some similarities to South Seattle College’s 13th Year Promise Scholarship.