Around The Region

Purdue offering aid to all Indiana counties\nWEST LAFAYETTE -- Purdue University is offering one student from each of Indiana's 92 counties a fully paid freshman year.\nThe new need-based annual scholarship program will be unveiled Thursday and is expected to begin in 2004.\nA total of $2 million of the $5.5 million needed to endow the scholarships has been raised, Purdue officials said.\n"What is distinctive about this program is we are trying to identify young people whose personal circumstances or adversities are so great that they might think that it's just not possible for them to come to Purdue," President Martin C. Jischke told The Indianapolis Star.\nUnder the Purdue Opportunity Awards Program, the university will cover the amount of tuition and room and board -- currently $11,920 -- that state and federal aid does not.\nPurdue will help freshmen find aid after their first year.