Meeting Street Charleston Compact Expands Access to CofC

_{Above: Meeting Street Scholars play Connect Four with Alicia Caudill, executive vice president of student affairs, at a pizza party outside the Multicultural Center. (Photos by Catie Cleveland)}

The College of Charleston is enhancing college accessibility for high-achieving students with demonstrated financial need with a new initiative, the Meeting Street Charleston Compact.

The Charleston Compact will leverage the Meeting Street Scholarship Fund and guarantee that its recipients who enroll in the College will have all eligible expenses fully covered. Those expenses include housing, food, tuition and required fees.

“We want to grow the number of Meeting Street Scholarship Fund recipients we enroll,” says Jimmie Foster, vice president of enrollment planning. “The recipients have proven to be strong leaders inside and outside the classroom. They are thriving at the College of Charleston. By increasing our financial support to these students, we hope more will choose to attend the College and then, upon graduation, will choose the greater Charleston community as a wonderful place to launch their careers.”

The College of Charleston is the second higher education institution in South Carolina to design an aid program specifically around the scholarship and the students it serves.

“This Meeting Street Charleston Compact will make a meaningful difference in our recipients’ lives,” says Josh Bell, president of Beemok Education, which includes the Meeting Street Scholarship Fund. “We’re grateful for the College of Charleston’s leadership for recognizing this need and helping our state’s brightest students with the most financial need earn a college degree. The Charleston Compact will forever change their lives.”

Caryn Lewis, a sophomore at the College of Charleston, is a Meeting Street Scholarship Fund recipient who owed more than $1,500 this semester, even after her Pell Grant, SC LIFE Scholarship and Meeting Street Scholarship. Caryn took out a student loan to cover that gap.

Caryn’s father, Christopher, calls the Charleston Compact a blessing, particularly for his family. Three of his five children will be enrolled in college next year.

“This is just going to mean so much to their future – not having that burden of student loan debt,” Christopher says. “I appreciate the College of Charleston for being so forward thinking and doing something like this. It shows the College doesn’t just care about the bottom line; they care about students.”

A total of 120 scholarship recipients attend the College of Charleston, ranking it third among campuses with the largest number of recipients.

The Meeting Street Scholarship Fund is a last-dollar scholarship that builds on other aid to close students’ funding gap. This means for students who receive the scholarship’s $10,000 annual maximum award after all other scholarships and grant funding, the College of Charleston will cover any remaining eligible expense. By design, students must cover costs for books and other out-of-pocket expenses.

The Meeting Street Scholarship Fund offers up to $40,000 to students who meet five criteria:

• Live in one of 12 eligible counties
• Graduate from a public high school in an eligible county
• Earn a SC LIFE or Palmetto Fellows Scholarship
• Apply for FAFSA and receive a Federal Pell Grant
• Enroll in one of 17 in-state colleges with a graduation rate of 50% percent or higher

Students will not have to apply to receive the Meeting Street Charleston Compact; the College plans to cover any additional costs of students starting in the fall of 2025. Additionally, the College of Charleston is developing plans to enhance its existing support for Meeting Street Scholarship Fund recipients to ensure they retain their scholarships and ultimately graduate.