The well-known EASE Grant (Efficient Entry to Scholar Schooling), previously referred to as the Florida Resident Entry Grant or FRAG, has been below assault for a number of years now. Since its inception in 1979, this worthy and necessary grant award has helped a whole lot of hundreds of Florida University students to understand their goals of changing into a school graduate. In 2018, the grant got here below assault when The Home Larger Schooling Appropriations Committee lowered the grant award from $3,500 to $2,841.

The final fiscal 12 months ’s funds for EASE was almost $114 million and served roughly 41,000 University students. In a earlier model of Home Invoice 7087, provisions inside the invoice would have turned the EASE program from a non needs-based scholarship, to means examined monetary assist. There have been even discussions to decrease the grant award to $1,100 per 12 months by Home Larger Schooling Subcommittee Chair, Randy Advantageous, which might be a big loss to Florida’s University students. Based on ICUF President, Bob Boyd, the invoice would have brought about roughly 27,000 University students to lose their subsidy. That’s greater than 60% of the 43,000 EASE recipients.

After launching a marketing campaign in early February, Keiser University and dozens of ICUF faculties, together with Bob Boyd, pressured the Home Larger Schooling Appropriations Committee to take away their proposition. To our delight, on February twenty fourth, they accepted a proposed committee substitute to HB 7087, and on this substitution, language was eliminated referring to the EASE Grant. On February 26^th, over 100 University students from a number of Florida ICUF faculties, traveled to Tallahassee to march on the Capitol to specific their want for EASE and say thanks to the Home Larger Schooling Appropriations Subcommittee for making this significant choice. The funding is presently maintained at $2,841 per scholar.

Whereas non-public non-profit schools and universities, comparable to Keiser University, are grateful that each the senate and Home Larger Schooling Appropriations Committees have really useful stage funding for this necessary program, we encourage them to reverse final 12 months ’s 18% minimize and produce the funding again to the $3,500 per scholar stage it had beforehand been. It needs to be famous that this appropriation represents solely 4% of all the increased schooling state help, and that for each greenback invested by the state within the non-public sector, it achieves over three bachelor’s levels in return, as evaluate to lower than .5 levels from the state universities. (Most up-to-date IPEDS)

We will solely hope that the grant will return to $3,500 within the subsequent legislative session in 2021. We’re in for a battle, however it’s a battle value pursuing, for the sake of our University students. We’re most grateful to all the University students that made the lengthy journey to the Capitol on a really wet and blustery day, and we would like you to know that Keiser University will all the time battle for you!

It’s really an thrilling time to be a Keiser University Seahawk!

Cordially,

Chancellor Arthur Keiser Ph.D.