PHILADELPHIA (KYW Newsradio) — Chestnut Hill College's new HOPE Scholarship is intended to help adults get back in the classroom after they had to put their educations on pause.
April Fowlkes, the college's director of accelerated adult admissions, says the $300,000 HOPE (helping others by providing education) Scholarship fund will help dozens of people.
"It is a scholarship that is really catered to adults students who previously attended Chestnut Hill College and had to step out for different reasons like outstanding balances or ran out of financial aid," she said.
Kimberly Solise, a senior persuing a degree in organizational dynamics, says as a person who councils teens, she found it imparitive to get back.
"I was telling them that they needed to stay in school and it would make their opportunities better," she said. "Meanwhile, I'm someone who didn't finish school."
Solise says fiscal setbacks in her personal life and work life forced her to put her education to the side.
"Then I got the call from Chestnut Hill, saying there was this opportunity and they would pay off my outstanding balance, and I thought that was amazing," she said.
Fowlkes says students can receive anywhere between $2,000 and $5,000 in scholarship money, and it will be given out over the next three years.