There is a scholarship program offered by New York State. It is called the Excelsior Scholarship. With this one, the students are allowed to attend a SUNY or CUNY college without having to pay the tuition. Keep in mind that it does not cover the other costs of college such as fees, room and board, textbooks, and some other ones.
There are several requirements to be able to apply the Excelsior Scholarship program. Here is the list of some of these requirements:
Eligibility Requirements:
- You must be a resident of New York State and have lived in New York State for 12 continuous months prior to the start of the term;
- You must be a U.S. citizen or eligible non-citizen;
- You must have either graduated from high school in the United States, gained a high school equivalency diploma, or passed a federally approved Ability to Benefit test, as defined by the Commissioner of the State Education Department;
- You must have a total federal adjusted gross income of 110,000 or less for the 2018-2019 academic year;
- You must be pursuing an undergraduate degree at City University New York;
- You must be enrolled in a minimum of 12 credits per term and complete a minimum of 30 credits every year, applicable towards your degree program;
- If you attended college prior to the 2018-2019 academic year, you must have earned a minimum of 30 credits each year (successively), applicable towards your degree program prior to applying for an Excelsior Scholarship;
- You must be in a -non default status on a student loan made under any New York State or federal education loan program or on the repayment of any New York State award;
- You must be in compliance with the terms of the service condition(s) applied by a New York State award that you have previously received;
- You must follow a contract agreeing to live in the New York State for the length of time the award was received. If employed during such time, it is needed for you to be employed in New York State.
Financial Requirements:
- You must have a household federal adjusted gross income of a total of $125,000. For those who are not familiar with the Adjusted Gross Income or AGI, this one is able to be found on the federal income tax form. It refers to your total gross income minus the specific deductions. This kind of thing is determined by your income, the spouse and or parents where applicable.
- If your full tuition is covered by TAP, Pell Grants and the other scholarships, you are not eligible for the excelsior Scholarship.
Application Requirements:
Apart from the FAFSA and TAP applications, it is also a must for you to file an Excelsior Scholarship application. To find the application, you can just go to the official website of HESC at www.hesc.ny.gov. Keep in mind that there is no need for you to complete this application if you are already list as a recipient of an Excelsior Scholarship from a previous application period. One is considered as a recipient if they signed and submitted the Excelsior Scholarship contract even if they did not get payment in the prior year.
When and what should you do to apply the Excelsior Scholarship? According to the official website of Higher Education Services Corporation or HESC, the application for this scholarship program has passed. It means there is no way for you to apply to it now.
For those who have applied for the Excelsior Scholarship who want to know your application status or those who missed the chance who want to get Excelsior Application updates, you can get a notification. In order to get a notification, the first thing that you have to do is to go to the Excelsior Scholarship Program page of Higher Education Services Corporation or HESC. When you are on the page, you will have to find the Email address and Mobile Number field. Please enter your email address in the Email address field and your mobile number in the Mobile Number field. After entering everything, the last thing to be done is to press the Subscribe button.
Just like that, you will be notified by email and by a text message. According to the page, the text notification is able to be only sent to the mobile phones. If you want to use this feature, you need to know that the message and data rates may apply. If you find it useless and want to stop the service, you can just text STOP and send it to 888-697-4372.
For more information about the Excelsior Scholarship, including about the Excelsior Scholarship application status, the best thing that you can do is to visit the official website of Higher Education Services Corporation or HESC at hesc.ny.gov. If you have any questions, first of all, you will be able to find the commonly asked questions related to the Excelsior Scholarship on the site. In case you cannot find the answer to your question, you are suggested to contact the Scholarship Unit at excelsior@hesc.ny.gov.
As the Excelsior Scholarship is related to SUNY and CUNY, you might also want to try to reach out the representative of these two.
SUNY:
- Phone number: 518.320.1100
- Email address: communications@suny.edu
- Address: SUNY System Administration H. Carl McCall SUNY Building 353 Broadway Albany, NY 12246
CUNY:
- Phone number: 1-800-CUNY-YES (1-800-286-9937)
- Email address: inquireCUNY@cuny.edu
- Address: City University of New York University Offices 205 East 42ndStreet New York, NY 10017
The best method to reach them out is to call the phone number that has been mentioned above as there is a high chance of you to get a fast response. It is clearly the best compared to the other two. If you want to get the better response, you are encouraged to call the number on the work days and work time. The second one, which is sending an email is not recommended as it might take some time for them to give a reply. As for the third one, feel free to visit the address or to send a mail to the address. The latter one is not recommended, just like sending an email, as it might take some time for you to get a response.
