The University of Virginia’s College at Wise serves an extremely needy population of students not only from Virginia but from neighboring Tennessee and Kentucky. Of our 787 18-19 Pell recipients, 451 had an estimated family contribution of $0. Students who have little monetary support from their parents tend to find college more of a struggle because the need to work, or to work full time, seems far more urgent than for those peers for whom funding is not a concern.

The creation of the Incentive Grant addition to the Commonwealth Transfer Grant has been extremely helpful in filling a funding gap for our students who are coming to us with their Associate Degree from the VCCS. This group typically chose the community college as a cost savings measure so the additional funding for transfer students has been especially helpful in lowering or completely removing the need for student loans. The Incentive has also helped immensely with our funding of the AIMS program we have with Mountain Empire our local community college. This program promises to cover the cost of tuition for students through a mix of federal, state and institutional aid.