(DES MOINES) - Gov. Terry E. Branstad, Lt. Gov. Kim Reynolds and Iowa Student Loan leaders recognized today 20 Iowa high school seniors who each won a $1,500 college scholarship through participation in the Iowa Financial Know-How Challenge: Senior Scholarship, administered by Iowa Student Loan. The high school seniors from across the state were recognized in a special award ceremony at the John and Mary Pappajohn Education Center.
This was the second year Iowa Student Loan offered the Iowa Financial Know-How Challenge: Senior Scholarship, which provided Iowa high school seniors the chance to win $1,500 for college while learning important financial literacy skills.
Between December 2014 and February 2015, registered high school seniors were asked to complete two online financial literacy tutorials ? Student Loan Game PlanSM and the ROCI Reality Check ? which Iowa Student Loan developed to help students understand the consequences of college borrowing and discover how to maximize their return on college investment, or ROCI. In addition, scholarship contenders were required to take an online financial literacy assessment test. The 20 winners were those who scored highest on the assessment or, in the case of a tie for top scores, received the highest scores on an independently judged essay.
At today's award ceremony, Branstad congratulated the students and thanked them for seeing the value in furthering their education and learning financial responsibility.
"It's crucial for students to minimize debt and for policymakers to find ways to try to hold down the cost of higher education," Branstad said. "Financial literacy is now part of our Iowa academic standards and colleges and organizations like Iowa Student Loan have increasingly have stepped up to help students understand the long-term implications of debt."
The Iowa Financial Know-How Challenge: Senior Scholarship was created to provide an additional funding source for college-bound students, as well as educate them on ways to minimize their borrowing for college and reach the financial potential of a college degree, said Christine Hensley, Iowa Student Loan board chair.
"We witness firsthand the pressures Iowa students and families are facing to finance higher education," Hensley said. "One of the goals for this program was to provide a scholarship that any Iowa high school senior could qualify for ? a scholarship that wasn't merit- or need-based. And we also wanted it to educate them on ways to minimize their borrowing and reach the financial potential of a college degree."
This past legislative session, Branstad and Reynolds stressed that more must be done to ease students' college debt burden. Branstad told the scholarship winners and their families that he and Reynolds worked to freeze tuition for Iowa students at the regent institutions and boost the Iowa Tuition Grant for students attending Iowa's private colleges and universities.
"Encouraging students to earn a college degree or other postsecondary credential is essential, but so is managing the cost," he said. "To truly address the high debt levels of our state's college students, it's going to take the efforts of everyone ? government, schools, nonprofit organizations, the private sector and families."
More than 45 people attended Friday's award ceremony, including 13 of the 20 scholarship winners and their families. Branstad presented each winner with an award certificate; the $1,500 scholarship money can be used at the college or university of the winner's choice in fall 2015. Prior to the presentation, the students and their families were hosted for lunch.
Hensley had the following congratulatory words for the scholarship winners. "All of you are sitting here today because you proved your financial literacy knowledge. On behalf of Iowa Student Loan, I thank you for taking your college education seriously, and because you do, I know your futures are bright," she said.
