The heart of the St. Thomas mission is to educate both undergraduate and graduate students to be morally responsible leaders who think critically, act wisely, and work skillfully to advance the common good.
These words mirror the commitment of Archbishop John Ireland, the university’s founder, who was a strong advocate for the education of Catholic immigrants so that they could go "into the arena" of American society and benefit their new homeland.
With Ireland’s same ambition to enable students to earn a higher education and, with it, to advance the common good, St. Thomas aims to make its education accessible to students regardless of their economic backgrounds. Securing gifts for scholarships, grants and fellowships is the top priority of the Opening Doors campaign.
The university is seeking several types of student support. Most students need a variety of aid to help with their college costs, and
St. Thomas is doing all that it can to meet these needs and offer its educational opportunities to all.
Need-based awards make it possible for St. Thomas to open its doors to students from all walks of life. With gifts dedicated to need-based aid, students from low- and middle-income families, and many international students, are afforded the opportunity for a better education and better future than they ever imagined possible.
Merit-based financial aid rewards students for their academic achievements and attracts talented and highly motivated students to the university. These scholarships are based on high-school grades, standardized-test scores, and involvement in school, church and/or community. They are renewable as long as students maintain a high level of academic performance.
Many St. Thomas students come from middle-income families whose incomes are too high to receive federal or state grant aid, but not high enough to afford private-college tuition on their own. It is important to St. Thomas not to leave these students behind. Greatly increased aid is needed to help them and their families.
Providing scholarships and other aid to all of these students is a priority for the university, which, each year, falls several million dollars short of meeting students’ financial-aid needs, as determined by FAFSA (Free Application for Federal Student Aid) figures. St. Thomas is determined to reduce this shortfall and open its doors to as diverse a student population as possible.
In addition to financial-aid awards based on income and on academic accomplishment, St. Thomas seeks to award scholarships based on character. St. Thomas alumni should have the intellectual tools and moral commitment to go "into the arena," benefiting their families, their places of worship, their local communities and the wider society in whatever fields they choose to work. To help them achieve this, the university has the duty to make students aware of the variety of ways in which a life can be dedicated to service. It should assist as much as possible those students who demonstrate the ability and desire to become active within and contribute positively to society.
The new Community Builder scholarship program will do just this enabling St. Thomas to better meet its mission as defined by Archbishop Ireland more than 120 years ago. Community Builder scholarships will help make a St. Thomas education affordable to those students who are most likely to use their higher education in service to the community.
These scholarships will be awarded based on applicants’ history of service to others and their commitment and capacity to use their
St. Thomas educations in the service of society. The scholarships will be neither need-based nor merit-based (in the traditional sense) and will not be restricted by intended major field of study. Selection criteria will include previous school and community activities, particularly as those activities indicate the promise of "giving back" to others and to the community, both while attending St. Thomas and after graduation.
Donors can leave their own legacies at St. Thomas by establishing named scholarships. An endowed scholarship can be created with gifts totaling $50,000. The endowment will generate income from which one or more scholarships will be awarded each year. An annual scholarship can be named for a gift of $1,000 in any one year. Scholarships can be named for donors themselves, in honor of relatives or respected friends or colleagues, or in memory of deceased loved ones.
Graduate programs at St. Thomas extend the mission of the university to such professional areas as business, law, social work, education, engineering, counseling psychology and computer software applications, as well as art history, English, music, Catholic Studies and other fields. In each of these areas, students not only develop advanced understanding and skills in their fields, but also further develop their commitment to ethical professional practice and to using their skills for to advance the common good.
The tremendous need for financial aid among undergraduate students is widely recognized and tends to garner strong support among many who give to St. Thomas (although significantly more is needed). Fewer people are familiar with the need for graduate student aid.
Graduate education at St. Thomas highlights small class sizes and an emphasis on active learning. These practices create graduates of the highest professional skill and ethical commitment, but paying for this high caliber of instruction can be financially difficult to manage. Often graduate students are in mid-career and are forced to juggle both work and family responsibilities. They must make significant financial sacrifices in order to pursue their graduate degrees and, without financial aid, are forced to spread their graduate education over an undesirably long period of time.
In business and law, fellowships will help St. Thomas to develop and enhance its national profile and attract top students. Social work, education, divinity and counseling psychology are fields of study in which professionals traditionally are less well-compensated and need help to gain access to graduate school. Graduate-student financial aid will help these students to do good for their communities in fields that sometimes are unglamorous but always are in high demand.
Donors of fellowship or scholarship aid can restrict their gifts to any program that they desire, or they can give to graduate-student fellowships and scholarships in general and allow St. Thomas to determine where their gifts are most needed.