‘Reverse scholarships’ aim to bring home college grads

Community and business leaders are hoping financial incentives will lure more graduates back to the Blue Water Area after college.

The Community Foundation of St. Clair County has plans to award three $10,000 “reverse scholarships” sometime in early 2016 to attract college graduates who don’t already live in St. Clair County.

The goal: Alleviate their college loan debt and bolster the hometown workforce.

Randy Maiers, foundation president, said the nonprofit already awards roughly $200,000 in scholarships a year, but all sent student to college, not bring them back.

“That’s the idea, why do we have to do (just) front-end scholarships?” Maiers asked. “Is that some sort of law? What if we just waited until after they graduated with student debt?”

Reverse scholarships are often used by agencies such as hospitals to recruit new physicians to practice in underserved areas. Hospital trade college loan payments for the doctor’s commitment to serve the community.

But Maiers and Hale Walker, a foundation board member and co-founder of Michigan Mutual, said the reverse scholarship approach hasn’t been attempted with broader job recruitment efforts.

“We’re helping the person, but we’re not doing anything to help corporations like Hale’s. We’re not drawing talent back, we’re not giving them incentive to come back,” Maiers said.

Criteria for the scholarships are:

•Applicants must be graduates with degrees in science, technology, engineering, arts and math.

•Applicants must have completed a viable vocational, associate or bachelor’s degree program within the past seven years and still have student debt.

•Applicants live outside of St. Clair County while seeking the award.

Walker said opening up the program to science, technology, engineering, arts and math graduates helps the county demonstrate what kind of jobs are needed.

“As soon as they added arts to those different degrees, you’ve really opened it up a lot,” he said. “What we’re looking for is educated young people, with that background or entrepreneurial flair to come into the community and build the Blue Water Area.”

An anonymous donor has put up the money for the reverse scholarships.

Maiers said he anticipates approaching more donors after the scholarship is fully established. But before that can happen, he said, a legal distinction — demonstrating it’s for a community benefit — still needs to be clarified.

“The IRS would never question that bringing a doctor to a rural community is good for the community,” he said. “If a unit of government will endorse that this is such a program, then we believe that community foundations can legally do something about it.”

The St. Clair County Board of Commissioners gave its blessing but with no financial commitment in a resolution last week.

Bill Gratopp, who sits on both the county and foundation boards, said the benefits in other areas of community development, such as encouraging home ownership and spending money in local businesses, makes the idea that much more appealing.

“You like to think you can offer a place to raise your kids, and eventually see children come back home,” Gratopp said. “Everyone involved with economic development would love to see people return to the community.”

Walker will be organizing a committee to oversee implementation and administration of the reverse scholarship program.

Members of the committee would likely include other leaders from other groups, such as the Economic Development Alliance and the county board. Donors and those whose businesses would benefit from the program won’t be eligible.

Maiers said there are no long-term goals set yet in terms of how many scholarships and how much each award will be. But he said he’d imagine the number scholarships will increase as donors do, and that awards could approach up to $15,000 each.

He said there’s also no requirement that grant recipients would have to stay in the area for work for a certain length of time. But those who do leave forfeit portions of their award, which would be disbursed in installments.

Those interested in the program, Maier said, can watch for more information on the foundation’s website at www.stclairfoundation.org by the beginning of 2016.

Contact Jackie Smith at (810) 989-6270 or jssmith@gannett.com. Follow on Twitter @Jackie20Smith.