Invest in Tomorrow
Donations to The Scholarship Fund of MOAA help outstanding young people build a brighter future.

By Kris Ann Hegle

Matthew Cloos knows a thing or two about time management. This school year, the 21-year-old University of Iowa senior will carry a full course load while working 20 hours a week. Juggling school and work is nothing new for Cloos, who has worked part time throughout his college career. Although his parents, Marlene and Master Chief Petty Officer Mark Cloos, USNR, pay for his incidentals and car insurance, Cloos doesn’t want to saddle them with the burden of paying for his college education.

“I have two sisters,” he says. “Right now, I’m guessing when I get out of college my loans will total between $20,000 and $25,000. If my dad had to do that for all three of us ... well, there’s just no way.”

Cloos relies on a combination of student loans, grants, scholarships, and money from his part-time job to make ends meet. This year, he’ll shell out about $12,820 in tuition, fees, room and board, and books — approximately $1,048 more than he paid last year.

Cloos says he’s grateful for the financial assistance he’s received from The Scholarship Fund of MOAA during the past two years because it’s helped him keep pace with tuition increases. During his junior year, he received a $3,750 interest-free student loan. This year, he was named as one of the fund’s designated scholars and received a $3,500 interest-free loan and a $500 grant, funding made possible through a bequest from Bertha Guhl in memory of her husband, the late Cmdr. Eldon L. Guhl, USN.

“I still work 20 hours a week, but it’s not too overwhelming,” says Cloos, who hopes to land a job as an investment representative or pharmaceutical salesperson following graduation. “Having the loan and the grant allows me to not work as much so I can concentrate on my schooling.”

Keeping pace with demand

Cloos is one of more than 8,000 students who have received financial assistance through The Scholarship Fund of MOAA. Founded in 1948, the fund helps students who are the children of active duty, Reserve, National Guard, or retired uniformed services personnel by providing them with grants, scholarships, and interest-free loans.

Rising college costs have an increasing number of military dependents looking to The Scholarship Fund of MOAA for help covering their tuition expenses. Even many public colleges and universities have implemented hefty tuition increases in recent years due to state budget cuts. But while college costs are rising, financial aid has lagged, leaving students and their parents wondering how they are going to pay for it all.

In September 2004, the problems associated with financing a college education were highlighted when the National Center for Public Policy and Higher Education — an independent, nonprofit, nonpartisan organization that works to enhance Americans’ opportunities to achieve a higher education — issued its biennial report card. The report card, titled “Measuring Up 2004,” graded the performance in five categories of private and public four-year schools and community colleges in all 50 states. In the category of affordability, 36 states received an “F,” triple the number that received that grade in 2002.

The report calculated affordability by comparing net college costs with average family income in each state. In Cloos’ home state of Iowa, for example, 28 percent of an average family’s income is needed to pay for a public four-year university, up from 18 percent a decade ago.

Some worry that if costs continue to rise, outstanding students such as Cloos, who was named to the National Dean’s List and is a member of Phi Beta Kappa, could find that a college education is out of their reach. Indeed, the number of students seeking financial assistance has increased significantly during the past few years, and during the 2004–2005 school year, The Scholarship Fund of MOAA had to turn down two of every three students who applied.

Filling a niche

MOAA’s scholarship fund has several unique characteristics:

• Every dollar donated to the fund is used to help deserving students; employees’ salaries, office space, utilities, and other administrative costs for the fund are paid by the association.
• Unlike many conventional student loan programs, the fund enjoys a negligible default rate, with approximately 99 percent of the students repaying their loans. Every dollar these students repay goes right back into the fund, where it is used again to help other deserving scholars.
• The fund helps fill a void in the scholarship system, as military dependents face a number of challenges that make it more difficult for them to receive scholarships and other forms of financial aid.

Take Kimberly Macintire, a 19-year-old college sophomore who’s majoring in biochemistry at Tennessee Technology University in Cookeville, Tenn. The daughter of Jerrie and Col. Jeff Macintire, USA, Kimberly spent much of her childhood bouncing from one duty station to the next, moving a total of eight times.

Like many other military dependents, Macintire didn’t spend all four years at the same high school and was unable to achieve a class ranking, one of the criteria college admissions offices use when awarding scholarships and other financial aid.

Although the Macintires’ state of residence is Tennessee, the family was living in Germany during Kimberly’s senior year of high school, which prevented her from qualifying for many state and local scholarships. Sheer distance also made the process of applying for scholarship programs more difficult to accomplish, and many college admissions personnel had trouble evaluating the transcripts Macintire submitted from the high school she attended in Germany.

“I found myself answering lots of questions whenever I applied for a scholarship,” she says. “I’d have to explain that we were Americans, but we were living in Germany, and my dad was in the military. That’s what was great about MOAA. They understood.”

For the past two years, Macintire has received a designated scholarship from The Scholarship Fund of MOAA. Members of the Middle Tennessee Chapter established the designated scholarship in 2003 by pledging to donate $25,000 to the fund during a five-year period. Through the designated scholarship, which is named after the chapter, the fund has provided an interest-free loan and $500 grant each year to a deserving student who resides or has his or her home of record in the middle Tennessee area.

“We looked at different types of scholarship programs and decided to go with The Scholarship Fund of MOAA,” says Brig. Gen. Jeremiah Brophy, USA-Ret., who chairs the Middle Tennessee Chapter’s scholarship fundraising committee. “We compared it to chapters that ran their own scholarship fund, and we decided the designated scholarship was a real winner. We couldn’t be more pleased that the fund selected Kimberly Macintire.”

Macintire has continued to excel as a student while attending Tennessee Tech. During her freshman year, she maintained a 4.0 GPA, which made her eligible for the university’s honors program. She’s also a member of the university’s equestrian team, and she belongs to the Foreign Language Society, so she can brush up on her German.

However, Macintire is concerned about the mounting costs of her college education. This year, she’ll pay $3,000 more than she did last year for tuition, books, and room and board. Like Cloos, she’s concerned about the financial burden on her parents, which will increase next year when she and her two siblings all are enrolled in college at the same time.

Macintire says she’s thankful for the financial assistance she’s received from The Scholarship Fund of MOAA because it’s helping her achieve her dreams. In fact, she took time in October 2004 to travel to MOAA’s national convention in Nashville, Tenn., where she thanked members of the Middle Tennessee Chapter in person for their contribution to her education.

“It’s great that you get the money, and that really lifts part of the financial burden so I don’t have to take a part-time job,” she explains. “It’s also allowed me to get more connected to things on campus so I can really experience college life.”

Finding the funds

David Souders wanted to attend the U.S. Naval Academy in Annapolis, Md., after he graduated from El Camino High School in Oceanside, Calif. However, the eye cancer he overcame as a child left him with permanently impaired vision, making that dream impossible. Undeterred, he decided to attend his parents’ alma mater and enrolled in Oral Roberts University in Tulsa, Okla.

When Souders applied for financial aid, he found he was in a catch-22. His parents, Cindy and Lt. Cmdr. Steve Souders, USN, a chaplain, earned too much to qualify for many federal tuition assistance programs, yet they didn’t earn enough that they could save the necessary funds to cover the cost of David’s college education.

“It’s tough,” he says. “My parents are middle-class, so there are a lot of scholarships and aid that I don’t qualify for. I can’t really get anything unless I really, really search hard.”

The fact that Souders must “really, really search” speaks volumes about the level of aid available to those who are seeking a postsecondary education. A standout high school student, he was ranked eighth out of 600 students in his class. During his freshman year of college, he had a 4.0 GPA and received the president’s award. He also has been named as an All-American Scholar and made the National Dean’s List.

Because Souders took advanced-placement classes while he was still in high school, he started his freshman year of college with a semester’s worth of credits. His high GPA also helped him get academic scholarships from Oral Roberts University, as well as several other scholarships. Still, Souders must scramble every year to come up with enough money to pay for his room and board, tuition, books, and other expenses, which he estimates will total $21,000 this year.

Although he doesn’t have any siblings in college, he’s concerned about the cost of his education, which continues to increase every year. He’s also concerned about the financial stress being placed on his parents.

“Basically, what my parents decided to do, which is something I really didn’t want them to do, but I can’t really stop them, is they decided to stop putting money away in their IRAs,” he says. “They’re using that money to pay for my education, and then they’ll start up again when I’m through school.”

Souders estimates he’ll owe between $25,000 and $30,000 in student loans by the time he graduates. To save money, he cuts costs whenever he can, which includes foregoing trips to see his parents, who now are stationed in Juneau, Alaska.

“It costs about $1,000 to fly there, and the military just gives you one ticket a year because it’s considered an overseas trip,” he says. “My parents raised me pretty well, to be ready to leave, but still it’s nice to be with your family during a holiday.”

For the past two years, Souders has received financial assistance through The Scholarship Fund of MOAA, which selected him to receive one of five designated scholarships established by Col. Guy Cloud, USMC-Ret. As a designated scholar, Souders receives a $3,500 interest-free loan and $500 grant each year.

Souders says he’s thankful for the help he’s received from the fund, and he’s written to Cloud to thank him for his generosity. He also gives The Scholarship Fund of MOAA high marks for streamlining the application process. Applications can be completed online via MOAA’s Web Base at www.MOAA.org/education/ (see “Get More With MOAA,” below).

“I think it is definitely a good organization to contribute to because it really does help, and it’s well organized,” says Souders. “If you’re going to put your money in a program, you want to know your money is going somewhere good. It seems like this program definitely does its research on the people they choose to give loans and scholarships to. Because of that, you know your money is going to a good cause."