A UNC financial aid initiative will soon honor 20 years of providing students with financial and career support with a year-round series of events. The anniversary celebration is set to kick off this month as classes begin.
Since 2004, UNC’s Carolina Covenant program has helped give qualifying students from low income backgrounds the opportunity to graduate debt free, while also providing a professional network of support in and after college. Program director Candice Powell said it was a groundbreaking initiative at the time and that there were few universities that had a program like it.
The idea began with then director for the Office of Scholarships and Student Aid Shirley Ort, former Chancellor James Moeser, and other senior administrators who noticed that Carolina students from low income backgrounds were among the least likely to graduate, explained Carolina Covenant director Candice Powell.
“Yet they’re so talented, right? We need these students here,” Powell said. “There’s gotta be something going on. It’s not the students, right? Like, what can we do as an institution to make sure that we can recruit and retain talented students.”
She said the program became a way to ensure that finances weren’t the barrier preventing those North Carolinians from applying, staying in school, and graduating.
“So [Ort] ran some early analysis to see what it would take to support students in our lowest income brackets with grants and scholarships and federal work study, and pitched that idea to university leadership and was able to get buy-in and traction, “ Powell said. “And the rest is history.”
The program supports admitted students from families at or below 200 percent of the poverty line, covering the standard cost of attendance, including tuition, books, housing, and meals up to a student’s demonstrated need.
But Powell said it’s more than a financial aid package. Covenant scholars are also given a program mentor and have access to an alumni network where students can build professional relationships and learn about potential career pathways.
20 years later, the program has over 8,000 degree holding alumni and historically represents about 10 percent of all undergraduate students at UNC, Powell explained.
“It’s a lot of students,” she said. “And we are one of very few institutions that have been able to support students at this scope and scale for this long.”
UNC junior Alli Pardue said a lot of her scholarships had fallen through before receiving the financial aid package. She explained she had already committed to Carolina and that her family planned to take out loans to pay the tuition.
“When I did get [the Carolina Covenant package], it was this crazy, perfect scholarship that was essentially a full-ride and the answer to all my prayers,” she said.
The Covenant scholar said her parents are especially grateful for the program’s financial support.
“I have two brothers as well that they want to put through college, so to be able to put me through college essentially for free is just a huge burden off of my family’s shoulders,” she said. “I know it’s like it’s like that for a ton of other students too.”
To honor the milestone, the program plans to host a year-round series of events, gatherings, and moments, Powell said, to accompany its annual functions.
In addition to the new student welcome ceremony and homecoming celebration, for example, the Carolina Covenant director said the university will host Dr. Anthony Abraham Jack in September for a talk on the strengths, experiences, and needs of low-income students as prestigious universities.
“We’re really excited to welcome him and continue to learn more about what we can do to make sure that these really talented students continue to see that the university values and supports them,” Powell said.
The program will also reveal its first strategic plan as a capstone to the anniversary celebrations, as well as debut a refreshed media presence to map out the stories that have been chronicled over the last 20 years.
“And some new videos, some new insights on students’ experiences and outcomes, our mentorship efforts, our alumni engagement,” she said. “So we’re really excited to help tell those stories and to help show the future vision that we have for the Carolina Covenant.”
She said the program plans to continue expanding professional opportunities for its students, which is an area it has especially grown over the last five years.
Carolina Covenant recently launched a Career Accelerator Program, as well as a summer internship initiative, which helps provide funding for students engaged in unpaid or underpaid internships.
Program director Candice Powell explained that while summer is an opportune time for students to engage in internships, it’s not something those from low-income backgrounds can always take advantage of. Whereas wealthier students, she said, typically face fewer barriers to those opportunities, like having potentially more career connections or the ability to accept unpaid positions.
“And our students sometimes have to make a decision between professional experiences that can really advance their career, and maybe going back home to work in the summer at a grocery store or at a regular place where they work so that they can continue to support themselves and their families.”
Pardue spent the summer working for her local paper, but she said because the staff is small, the internship was on an unpaid, voluntary basis. She typically spends the summer waitressing, but she explained that the initiative meant that she wouldn’t have to work both jobs at the same time.
“I was able to focus a lot more time on [the internship] and on growing my skills in a job that I’m actually passionate about and want a career in, so that was super helpful,” she added. “I didn’t have to dilute it and do less than that so that I could also make money to live.”
The program director said the program seeks to continue partnering with the university and inspiring donors so that support like this can remain possible for Covenant scholars.
“They make our university better,” she added. “We’re so grateful that they said yes to Carolina, and the Carolina Covenant is part of the reason why we’ve been able to attract and retain such extraordinary talent to the university.”
Featured photo via UNC-Chapel Hill.
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