IU announces 2006 Hoosier Presidential Scholars

Paying for college just got a little easier for several incoming IU students.\nSixty students recently received IU's 2006 Hoosier Presidential Scholarship and will have anywhere between $6,000 and $12,000 of their college costs covered annually. These students will also receive a free laptop computer and an additional $1,000 to go toward studying abroad beginning their junior year.\n"These exceptional Hoosier Presidential Scholars are Indiana's future business and civic leaders," IU President Adam Herbert, who started the scholarship program, said in a statement.\nThe scholarship, which is funded through a $10 million grant from the Lilly Foundation, aims to keep people in Indiana longer.\nOf the 60 winners, 45 will attend IU-Bloomington, while nine will enroll at IU-Purdue University Indianapolis and two will go to IU South Bend. There will also be one recipient selected to four of IU's other regional campuses. Freshman and Presidential Scholarship winner Andrea Coulis, who will attend IUB, said receiving this honor makes her feel overjoyed. She said she hopes she can use it to form connections with people like herself.\n"Becoming a Presidential Scholar has been tremendously exciting," Coulis said. "With this scholarship not only do I have the honor of recognition by the president of the University, but I also have the opportunity to meet several new friends and classmates with so much in common with me."\nScholarship winner Rainelle Bumbaugh, who will also attend IUB, said she is happy to be recognized for her hard work.\n"It feels very gratifying to be a Presidential Scholar," said Bumbaugh. "I worked so hard in high school, and managed to catch the eye of some influential people, and luckily one of them decided that I merited this scholarship and nominated me as a candidate."\nUnlike many of IU's other scholarships, a student must be from Indiana to be selected for the award. It is also preferred that the scholars be National Merit Scholarship qualifiers. \nHigh school students who are interested in and eligible for next year's award should submit their enrollment application to IU by this fall. Winners will be announced by January. \nFreshman Nicholas Cline said he was caught off guard when he was told he won the scholarship because he did not expect to be selected when he applied during his senior year of high school.\n"I never presumed to think I deserved something as prestigious as the Presidential Scholars program seems to be," he said, "but I was admitted and awarded nonetheless.