‘Your city cares about you’: Rockford Promise has record number of free tuition scholars

By Kevin Haas
Rock River Current
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ROCKFORD — A program that helps remove the financial barrier of attending college for Rockford Public Schools graduates has its largest class of scholars to date.

Rockford Promise on Wednesday signed commitments with some of its 175 students offered full-tuition, four-year scholarships to attend Northern Illinois University. The event at the Rockford Public Schools administration building was the first of six contract signing days where recipients review the program expectations and officially accept the scholarship.

This is the second year of the partnership between the city of Rockford, Rockford Promise and NIU. The number of scholars has grown 78% from the 98 accepted scholarships last year.

“The NIU/Promise program is already doing exactly what we anticipated it to do,” Mayor Tom McNamara said in a statement. “It is transforming the lives of our students and families, increasing home values, helping employers retract and retain talent, and making Rockford more competitive as we compete for new residents.”

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Susan Fumo, president of the Rockford Promise board of directors, said during Wednesday’s event that she has already learned about families moving into the city because they want to take advantage of the program for their children.

“Every time you buy a house in Rockford right now, it’s basically coming with $40,000 in free tuition,” she said.

The city is contributing $1.5 million annually to fund tuition for all qualified students to attend NIU. The money for the program comes from revenue Hard Rock Casino Rockford pays to the city.

“This is an investment in you, and you deserve this investment,” McNamara told the recipients. “This should tell you that your city cares about you, loves you and is here to support you.”

He told the recipients when they’re done with school he wants them to return to Rockford and help make it a better place to live.

“Long term, I have confidence that we’ll realize additional benefits that come with educational attainment, such as a reduction in violent crime,” McNamara said.

Eleven of the first 98 scholars to attend NIU made the dean’s list in their first semester with a grade-point average of 3.5 or higher, according to Rockford Promise.

Rockford Promise received 281 scholarship applications for the upcoming academic year. That’s up from 266 applications in the first year of the program.

To qualify, students must live inside the city, attend a Rockford Public School for all four years of high school and graduate with a cumulative 3.0 grade point average on a 4.0 scale.

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NIU is one of three higher education partners in the program. The recipients of the Rockford University and Rock Valley College scholarships for 2022-2023 will be announced in upcoming weeks.

At the start of the school year, there were 98 Rockford Promise scholars at NIU, 23 at Rockford University and 64 at Rock Valley College.

More than 25 Rockford Promise scholars have graduated college since the program started, and an additional 20 are on track to graduate in May.

This article is by Kevin Haas. Email him at khaas@rockrivercurrent.com or follow him on Twitter at @KevinMHaas.