New Tennessee Tech students will have another opportunity to help pay for college, as the university opens a second round of scholarships through its Presidential Scholars program.
Tennessee Tech Director of Admissions Jacob Cutshall said the second deadline for program offers reduced scholarships ranging from $1,500 to $8,000 per year to new freshmen or transfer students who meet minimum grade point average and standardized test score requirements. Cutshall said some students determine that Tennessee Tech is the school for them mid-way through the school year.
“We want to make sure that those students are not just forgotten about, right,” Cutshall said. “We don’t just want to set that one deadline, and that’s it; if they miss it, too bad. You know, we want to give students that opportunity, even though we are not their first choice, we want to be their final choice. And so I think that’s kind of the mindset behind setting this secondary deadline.”
Students will be be able to keep the reduced scholarship for four-years as long as the student maintains 12 credit hours and at least a 3.0 gpa. Cutshall said this is a great opportunity for new students.
“So our bottom tier of the Presidential Scholars still covers $1,500 a year, and so even if you hit that bottom tier and you renew that every year, while it looks like it’s only $1,500, it really ends up being $6,000 over the course of your four years.”
Cutshall said the university will accept new applicants and will also reconsider students who have already applied and did not receive a scholarship the first time around. Cutshall said offering more scholarships for new students is just another way the university is living out the words they say.
“We are preaching that our graduates are graduating debt-free, and we do have the highest return on investment,” Cutshall said. “But this presidential scholarship is one of the ways that students can get the highest investment and the highest return on their investment.”
Cutshall said students who graduated from high school in the fall or in the spring immediately preceding entry to Tech. The secondary deadline to apply for the scholarship is by June 1, 2026.