Published
Entering her senior year at Waynesboro High School last fall, Emma Clark did not know whether higher education was in her future. The youngest of eight children, she was mindful that her father’s mechanic business had to provide for all her siblings. “I don’t have the access to money like other people would,” she says.
That all changed when Clark’s college adviser told her about Mary Baldwin University’s new Access MBU program, which cuts tuition costs for eligible incoming freshmen starting this fall. With the extra assistance from Access MBU, Clark will be leaving her family’s 10-acre farm in Waynesboro, Virginia, to pursue a major in social work at the private liberal arts university in Staunton. “I love working with kids,” she says.
Funded through alumni and corporate donations, Access MBU covers the remainder of tuition costs after Pell and Virginia Tuition Assistance grants are applied.
“Mary Baldwin has traditionally been an institution that’s focused on serving our low-income population and underserved students,” Matt Munsey, MBU’s vice president of enrollment management says. “[This program] was another way to make it very clear to those students that we’re out there for them as a choice and as an option.”
To be eligible, students must come from Virginia families making less than $60,000 in adjusted gross annual income. On average, students will receive about $3,500 through Access MBU for the 2023-2024 school year. Of the roughly 350 new students arriving in the fall, Munsey expects 130 will qualify.
MBU staff declined to specify the total amount allocated for the program, but Associate Vice President for University Communication and Editorial Direction Liesel Crosier says MBU will continue the program as long as it can.
Lawayne Ames, another incoming MBU freshman, also found out about Access MBU through an adviser last fall. He’s coming from Northampton High School in Eastville on the Eastern Shore and is looking forward to a change in scenery. “Where I live, there’s not really much to look at. [MBU] is up in the mountains, so it’s better,” says Ames, who hails from the rural community of Birdsnest.
Planning on studying pre-medicine, Ames is also enrolled in MBU’s PERSIST program, designed to connect incoming African American male students with mentoring and networking opportunities. “It’s empowering Black men to graduate and succeed,” he says.