By Susan Brinkmann, OCDS
Staff Journalist
The excellent academic track record of home-schooled students has motivated an anonymous donor to give a $5 million gift to a Texas Christian university to establish what is believed to be the largest endowment for home-school student scholarships ever received.
“[The donor] has just been very impressed with the home-school graduates [and] the home-school families that he’s met, and he’s seen the data that these students are so very successful when they get to college,” said Dr. Dale A. Lunsford, president of LeTourneau University (LETU in Longview, Texas. “So he wants to do what he can to help get even more home-school graduates at great Christian universities like LeTourneau.”
Lunsford believes the way home-schooled students are taught makes them especially capable at the university level.
“With the experiences they’ve had [and] the way they’ve been taught, they arrive here ready for college-level work, and they know how to learn; they’re motivated,” he said.
The endowment places LETU on the leading edge of a rising trend seen across campuses, as more students are graduating from a home-schooled environment. According to the Department of Education National Center for Education Statistics, the number of home-schooled students has increased 74 percent from 1999 to 2007, to more than 1.5 million. That these students are ready for college-level study is proven by their performance on college entrance exams where they perform as well or better than their peers from public or private schools.
“Our goal as a university is to equip our students to impact every workplace in every nation for Christ,” said Vice President for Development Ben Y. March. “It is a priority at LETU to build our endowment funds to help support our students and their parents so these talented students can fulfill that goal.”
Scholarships are awarded based on financial need. Fifteen students have already been selected to receive scholarship money for the 2010-2011 school year.
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