The University of Texas at Arlington announced on March 16 that it will cover tuition and additional fees for undergraduate students whose family income is below $85,000 a year.
According to the university, the new program, called “Blaze Forward,” will cover tuition and fees for new students for up to four years. Transfer students will be eligible to have their tuition and fees paid for two years.
The Blaze Forward program will also cover the costs of already-enrolled students whose family incomes are below $85,000. The program will pay for however many semesters current students have remaining before on-time graduation.
Most of the money for the program will be generated by UTA funding and a new allocation from the University of Texas System.
In February of this year, the University of Texas System announced a $300 million endowment program; the funding was generated by “a series of prudent investments by UT System financial officers that produced higher than expected returns over the past fiscal year,” according to a press release.
Some funding for the Blaze forward program will come from federal and state grants.
Vice President for Enrollment Management Troy Johnson said that the university’s launch of the Blaze Forward program would allow more students to experience the “transformational power of a UTA education.” The university hopes that this use of resources will cultivate the promise and potential of talented current and future students.
Interim President Teik C. Lim said in a press release that the idea is to make university education more attainable and provide financial assurances to families and students in need.
According to the University of Texas in Arlington, only Texas residents and those eligible for the Texas Grant program qualify for the new program.
The university expects over 4,000 students to qualify for the Blaze Forward program in the coming year. Eventually, the program is expected to assist approximately 4,600 students annually.
