If you’re reading this, you might be in that market. The prospective student whom BJU is recruiting most “aggressively” is most likely non-white, working class, often lives in South Carolina (because the state funds are easiest to transfer), and needs scholarship funds to attend college.
These prospective students are new to Bob Jones University and perhaps new to fundamentalism entirely.
Successful applicants will receive a scholarship in the name of the Christian Learning Centers for the balance of their tuition bill, less $2,000, which equals approximately 7.5 hours per week worked in an on-campus job during the academic year. This is a tuition-only scholarship… .
The exact scholarship amount will be the balance due after Pell grants, state scholarships, BJU aid and the $2,000 work component are deducted from the cost of tuition. The Christian Learning Centers will also inform winning students of on-campus job opportunities to help fulfill the work component. While the scholarship is not dependent on employment, we feel the work component makes the scholarship students feel more vested in their educations, and thus, more likely to succeed.
An applicant must … qualify as a minority under the scholarship guidelines from BJU.
So wait a second. Bob Jones University is offering “work scholarships” only to minority students. White students don’t work those jobs?
Let’s summarize this again:
There’s a set of scholarship monies available to students of color at Bob Jones University only if they work on campus.
Still don’t believe it? According to the Greenville News, the Phillis Wheatley Center “students” – a local African-American community center in Greenville’s Nicholtown – as well as a similar group in Orlando have been offered these same “work scholarships.”
John Matthews, BJU’s VP for Advancement, explains:
There are students particularly in the inner cities, usually students of color, that the university wants to be part of their student body “but they’re going to need extra help.”
“The university, in recent years, has been giving more and more money away to make it affordable but there’s still a gap for students to get here. The EFC Zero scholarship is meant to be one last scholarship fund that we can give to students on top of all the other funds we’re giving away to make it affordable for a student who has no money to give to come to college,” he said.
The scholarship is called the EFC Zero Scholarship because EFC, the Expected Family Contribution, is the government’s term when a family completes the FAFSA, the entry door for finding available financial aid for college., Matthews said. It’s also when the government determines if the “zero” dollars to contribute to college costs, he said.
“We find young people willing to work a little bit. We have jobs we supply where students can work minimum wage and above and earn about $2,000 a year to help pay for college,” Matthews said.
No other students at Bob Jones University are offered work scholarships except students of color. White students work in campus job programs unconnected to their tuition. Students of color get scholarships if they work on campus.
Prospective student of color, is this what you want for your college career?
Having lived in Gville and seen and interacted with the Bob Jones community, I’m not surprised. They’re very active in local politics and are the prime movers behind the resistance to enacting the holiday recognizing MLK. I once overheard a member refer to MLK as “a heretic” and was reassured that, unlike other people around here, “they” wouldn’t hold the fact that I was raised Catholic against me.
On the surface they preach God’s love and most often interact in a very warm, Southernly manner. Make no mistake, though, it is a cult, and they feel completely justified in some pretty horrific ways of thinking.
Hearseeno 