By Jack Ritchey
Listen Up Lansing Staff Reporter
The Lansing Promise Scholarship, created by legislation passed in 2009 that made 10 “promise zones” in Michigan, helps provide higher educational opportunities to deserving high school graduates or those who recently completed their GED.
The scholarship is a big selling point for MSU Greenline, Michigan State University’s student call center, which asks Spartan alumni to give back to MSU.
Jake Evasic, a physics senior at MSU and supervisor at Greenline, says scholarships like the Lansing Promise help callers pull at the heartstrings of alumni and help generate the pathos needed to get them to give back.
“I know for sure we call about the Promise Scholarship,” Evasic, 22, said, “it’s something I liked to talk about a lot when I was a caller because you can start getting the alumni to sympathize with what it would be like to not come to MSU.”
The scholarship can provide up to an associate’s degree at Lansing Community College or up to $5,000 tuition at MSU.
The need may be substantial in Lansing. At 29.4 percent, the poverty rate in Lansing is nearly double the national average of 14.8 percent, according to census.gov.