Financial Aid Office

Michigan Promise Scholarship Award

You may have been awarded a Michigan Promise Scholarship for the 2009-10 year because we have received a roster of eligible students from the Michigan Office of Scholarships and Grants (MI-OSG).

The State Senate Appropriations sub-committee has recently proposed that funding for the Michigan Promise program be reduced or eliminated entirely in an effort to balance the state budget for 2009-10. At this time, the future funding of the Michigan Promise Scholarship program is unknown.  Although we have not been informed of when the final decision will be made by the Michigan Senate and the governor, we hope it will not be later than October, 2009.

Because of the uncertain future of the program, we wanted to make you aware that the Michigan Promise Scholarship may not disburse on to student accounts with your initial fall aid disbursement.  If you have certified your award, your estimated award was changed to allow the first $500 to appear as “potential aid” on your fee statement.

Although the Promise Scholarship may not be available to count toward an excess aid refund, LSSU has assumed it will be applied to your charges as soon as it becomes available and has subtracted it from your immediate amount due.

We anticipate that if the program is eliminated, all students throughout the state who were previously notified of their eligibility will be contacted by the MI-OSG to inform them of the Senate and governor's decision and to rescind the scholarship offer.  We will remove the potential payment at that time and you may owe the institution additional funds.

However, if the funding is approved, we will disburse the scholarship as soon as we receive official notification from MI-OSG.

We regret that we do not have more information at this time but we wanted to make students and families aware of the proposal in order to plan accordingly for the upcoming school year.