USU to honor mistaken stipends

LOGAN — Utah State University, which last spring mistakenly awarded scholarships to 500 prospective students, decided to honor the offers. Administrators now say the mistake turned out to be a good investment.

The 380 students who accepted the awards and joined the student body at USU this fall have helped make the current freshman class the strongest in the history of the school, officials say. Estimates indicate that the average ACT score among USU's freshman class is higher than ever before at 22.9. The average freshman grade-point average is also at an all-time high of 3.48.

Joyce Kinkead, USU's vice provost for undergraduate studies and research, said the mix-up occurred in the early spring when letters announcing full-tuition four-year scholarships to recipients of the USU Dean's Scholarship Award were also sent to students who qualified for a new half-tuition four-year scholarship called the Academic Merit Scholarship Award.

"It was really a computer glitch," Kinkead said. "We were sending out the Dean's Scholarship Award letters at the same time as the Academic Merit Scholarship Award letters and both students got the Dean's Scholarship Award letters."

Kinkead said the requirements for the scholarships are very similar, differing by two ACT points and a 3.75 GPA instead of a 3.5 GPA.

The accident was discovered almost immediately and a subsequent mailing informed scholarship recipients of the error within a few days, Kinkead said.

"We informed the president and provost immediately because this required the highest-level decisionmaking," she said. "It was decided almost immediately to honor it."

Every available staff member was put to work personally calling all 480 awardees within a 24-hour period, Kinkead said.

Although the mistaken mailing could cost USU up to $2 million over the four-year period, historical analysis shows that 37 percent of scholarship awardees forfeit their Academic Merit Scholarships when they fail to meet the academic requirements or transfer to other institutions.

The cost to Utah State will be approximately $400,000 in the 2003-04 academic year, and officials estimate that the overall cost will be approximately $1 million. The cost will be paid out of a "rainy day" fund reserved for unanticipated expenses, Kinkead said.