March 5, 2010

Aquinas offers $1,000 tuition credit to first-time freshmen

Andy Telli, Tennessee Register 

To celebrate National Catholic Colleges Week, Aquinas College in Nashville is offering a gift to students who would be first-time college freshman in the fall: a $1,000 tuition credit.

Aquinas President Sister Mary Peter Muehlenkamp, O.P., hopes people will see the tuition credit offer as “a helping hand … in these difficult economic times, so people who think we’re out of reach can know we’re not.”

She’s also hoping the tuition credit offer will help Aquinas raise its profile in the community.

“We’re trying to get the word out better who we are and what we do here,” Sister Mary Peter said. “So many people think Aquinas is just a nursing school. We have a great business program, a great teacher education program and a great liberal arts program.”

Part of the college’s mission, she said, is to “transform life and culture through truth and charity.”

“Not only do (students) get an outstanding education in a small atmosphere where they are known by name but are transformed by the values they’re taught and see lived,” she said.

“It’s not just adding a religion course to everything else we teach. It’s an atmosphere of learning permeated with faith,” Sister Mary Peter said. “They learn it directly through courses, but also through the atmosphere of the dignity of the human person that is lived and taught there … they then bring it out to others they encounter.”

A certificate explaining the tuition credit offer was inserted in the Feb. 19 issue of the Tennessee Register, and the school is already receiving a response.

One woman who already has a degree but was planning on going back to college saw the certificate and decided to check out Aquinas even though she wouldn’t be eligible for the program, Sister Mary Peter said. “We’re also experiencing what I’d hoped would happen … that even people who aren’t first time students are intrigued enough to go to our website.”

In other incident the Dominican sister who is the principal at St. Gertrude School in Cincinnati showed the certificate to a former student who is a senior in high school, Sister Mary Peter said. After seeing the certificate the student decided to come to Aquinas, she added. “We will work with her to find suitable housing.”

“So far, we’ve received just positive feedback from it,” said Connie Hansom, director of admissions for Aquinas.

The school won’t know the full extent of the impact of the offer until students finish registering for classes that start in the fall, Hansom said. The first day students can register is May 13, but registration will continue through August, she added.

The credit is good for the first semester only, but students are also eligible for other financial assistance, Hansom said. Aquinas also gives a $1,000 Catholic Student Award to students who can show they are practicing Catholics, she said. In the past, that offer was only for first-time freshman, but this year it will be extended to transfer students as well.

The same offer is also available to non-Catholic students who are graduates of a Catholic High School, Hansom said.

Tennessee residents can also apply for the Hope Scholarship, which is financed through the Tennessee Lottery.

The basic Hope Scholarship this year is $2,000 per semester. A merit supplement of $1,000 is available for students who demonstrated high academic achievement, and a second supplement is available for students who can demonstrate need.

Aquinas’ tuition is $8,865 per semester for students taking 12 to 18 credit hours. With the tuition credit offer and other assistance available, Hansom said, “All of the sudden it’s looking like college is feasible, I can do that.”

Enrollment at Aquinas is 850 students, nearly double the enrollment in 2000, Sister Mary Peter said.

Aquinas has experienced “steady growth over the last decade,” Sister Mary Peter said, “steady growth and big dreams.”

The college has developed a master play for a major expansion of its campus, including a free-standing chapel, academic buildings, dormitories and student center, Sister Mary Peter said. She is still working to raise funds to make the plans reality.

Included in the plans is a perpetual adoration chapel that would be open to the rest of the Catholic community in Nashville, Sister Mary Peter said. “It was very specifically placed in the whole plan so it will be easily accessible.”

Through its lecture series, catechist formation programs and other opportunities, Aquinas is a resource for the diocese, Sister Mary Peter said, and would like to increase that role.

Aquinas and Christian Brothers University in Memphis are the only Catholic colleges in Tennessee.

For more information about the tuition credit offer or the college, call (615) 297-7545.