Kamehameha beefs up scholarship assistance
By Vicki Viotti
Advertiser Staff Writer
Kamehameha Schools, confronted by frustrated parents and students seeking college scholarships, has beefed up its financial aid hotline to help applicants needing grants for this fall.
Help with Kamehameha Schools' college scholarship applications, due April 15: • The next in an ongoing series of workshops is set for 6 p.m. Thursday at the Elementary School Dining Hall, Kapalama campus. • Information is available online at the Financial Aid and College Services site: www.ksbe.edu/finaid • Financial Aid also offers over-the-phone assistance and general information: 534-8080.
The hotline (see box) is one step in an uphill trek the school faces in making its scholarships more accessible to its target population of Native Hawaiians, some of whom say there are too many restrictions and too little response from the office that hands out the money.
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The issue arose this week after The Advertiser reported that four scholarships out of 2,700 were granted to non-Hawaiians after the list of qualified Hawaiian applicants was exhausted. The Kamehameha policy is that the school must give preference to Native Hawaiians in educational services, said school spokesman Ray Soon.
Soon also clarified that those grants to non-Hawaiians were for students enrolled in college this year; the deadline for new applicants attending in the 2004-2005 academic year is April 15.
The report has stirred an emotional response from some who say the program had not been well publicized. Victoria Lyman, mother of three Kamehameha graduates and one senior, said the school's financial aid operation is "in utter and complete disarray" and that calls to the office often don't get returned promptly.
Soon acknowledged that the school has been less than responsive in the past. "We're definitely working on that," he said. "We've put more people on the phones, people who have had training."
Other scholarship restrictions, he said, are under review:
• The rule requiring applicants to be Hawai'i residents is being reconsidered.
"Alumni across the nation have been cut off from receiving scholarships because they are not residents of Hawai'i," Lyman said. "That includes students who purposely got residency in states such as California or Washington to help bring down tuition costs."
• School administration also is weighing whether to lift the restriction barring scholarships applying to non-U.S. schools, Soon said. That rule was instituted because of the difficulty of assessing the accreditation of some foreign schools, he said, but many colleges clearly would meet U.S. standards.
• Kamehameha also is looking for an application service with less burdensome requirements than the College Scholarship Service the school now uses, and one that doesn't charge a fee.
The added requirement that applicants provide information on assets as well as income has left Butch Ramos, father of a senior, wondering how to answer.
"We live on Hawaiian Home Lands," Ramos said. "So what's the value of my house? Hawaiian Home Lands cannot be sold. How do I tell them my house has zero value? I know we'll go back and forth on that one."
Ramos said the idea of non-Hawaiians getting scholarships isn't upsetting as long as Hawaiians are served. It's the belief that Hawaiians are being deterred by the application that bothers him.
A lot of parents haven't filled out the application because "it's intimidating," he said. "We shouldn't make it hard. We should make it easy for people."
