YSU offers tuition waivers to senior volunteers

By Denise Dick

denise_dick@vindy.com

YOUNGSTOWN

Senior citizens who volunteer at least 100 hours per year at one of three community organizations can offer a tuition waiver for a three-credit course at Youngstown State University to a family member or other student.

The Give Back Go Forward program is a pilot program at YSU and Eastern Gateway Community College.

It’s a collaboration among those institutions, the Ohio Department of Aging, Mature Services, the Ohio Department of Higher Education and Gov. John Kasich’s office.

“We have this baby-boomer workforce who still wants to be involved,” said YSU President Jim Tressel.

The three organizations, Inspiring Minds, Success By Six and Success After Six, all have an educational focus.

“They have one year to get 100 hours,” he said. “You have to be at least 60 to volunteer” and qualify for the waiver.

Kasich initiated the program, Tressel said.

Mature Services will track the hours that each participant volunteers.

Those who reach 100 will get the waiver for the three-credit course. They can give it to a student or save it for a future student, but each waiver must be used within five years. A student cannot use more than two waivers per academic year.

Both YSU and EGCC limit the number of waivers to 50 per year.

YSU trustees approved the program last month, and it’s been approved by the Ohio Board of Regents.

“You could have a grandson who is in 10th grade and save it for him when he’s a YSU student,” Tressel said.

Kasich proposed the program after Tressel pitched Project PASS, or Penguin Assistants for Student Success, a program in which YSU education students tutor second-graders in the city’s elementary schools to prepare them for the state-required third-grade reading test. YSU got a $450,000 Ohio Department of Education grant for Project PASS.

By participating in Give Back Go Forward, YSU is being a good partner and a good neighbor, Tressel said.

But it also establishes relationships.

“We hope they [the volunteers] feel as if they’re engaged with us a little bit, too,” he said.