$869 million in Scholarship Money For SC Students

From the SC Department of Education:

COLUMBIA - South Carolina’s high school seniors in the Class of 2009 won a record $869 million in college scholarships.  The $100 million increase from last year’s class led to the highest one-year total since the state began tracking the information seven years ago.

State Superintendent of Education Jim Rex said today that this year’s senior class total of $868,898,682 pushed South Carolina’s five-year scholarship to $3.5 billion.

“The Class of 2009 set a new standard for South Carolina that’s going to be hard to top,” Rex said.  “Their record-breaking total is a tribute to their hard work, but we also need to remember the support they received from their parents, teachers, guidance counselors and administrators.”

The scholarship totals came from an annual survey of South Carolina’s local school districts, as well as public charter schools, the Governor’s School for Science and Mathematics in Hartsville and the Governor’s School for Arts and Humanities in Greenville.  The State Department of Education estimated that 90 percent of the state’s scholarships are academic and 10 percent are athletic, although sports scholarships also have academic requirements.  LIFE, HOPE and Palmetto Fellows scholarships represent about a fifth of the state’s total.

The numbers represent two-year scholarship values for technical colleges and two-year schools, and four-year totals for four-year colleges and universities.

Previous scholarship totals for South Carolina were $581 million (2005), $614 million (2006), $684 million (2007) and $767 million (2008).