Fewer than 25 percent of some 14,000 students enrolled at UCM apply for the approximately 1,000 scholarships available on campus through the MoCents system.
Only about 3,200 applications have been submitted in the last year.
MoCents is the student scholarship application system at UCM. This website is loaded with scholarships for students of many backgrounds, ethnic groups and majors, as well as nontraditional students in graduate and undergraduate levels.
However, as enrollment increases each year, the number of scholarships unclaimed remains high, leaving hundreds of scholarships worth thousands of dollars unclaimed. The exact amount is uncertain due to the variety of scholarships available across multiple departments.
“The main goal of the foundation is to award as much money as possible, even if I have to chase them down,” said Vicki Voskovitch, financial aid counselor for the UCM Foundation.
As deadlines approach and there are unclaimed scholarship dollars, Voskovitch said she searches for students who are eligible for remaining scholarships and sends emails to inform them about the scholarship money waiting to be claimed.
Most of the advertising for scholarships on MoCents is done via email, through advertisements posted on the school’s website and through flyers posted on campus.
Voskovitch said she is not sure why so few students apply because they have worked for years to make the MoCents webpage easy to navigate and as efficient as possible.
MoCents replaced the paper system that required students to download individual forms or visit specific departments, according to the university’s website.
“The old process involved students having to download each application, print it, attach a transcript to it and then drop it off at whatever office or department was responsible for awarding the scholarship,” Voskovitch said.
Through MoCents, students create a personalized account and fill out a one-time application that matches them for all scholarships they qualify for based on information they provide, including major/minor, grade point average and financial need.
Sophomore education major Allison Casey said many students are unaware of the site or feel if they apply they may not even get it.
Voskovitch said she is planning to update the MoCents webpage over winter break by adding new scholarship endowments that were just created.
Overall, there are about 550 smaller scholarships available through each department and around 450 family scholarship endowments created by more than 300 different families. Voskovitch said it costs $20,000 to start a named scholarship endowment.
“The process then takes about a full calendar year,” Voskovitch said. “After the $20,000 is given, the fund has to collect interest for a year and the first scholarship award is the interest acquired, which is about $750 or the cost of one class.”
She said what makes UCM Foundation scholarships different from financial aid is that the student can decide when they would like to use the money. They can also split their scholarship per semester or use it all at once if they graduate in less than two semesters Foundation scholarships found on MoCents can also be used toward summer classes while financial aid money usually does not allow students to take summer classes.
For more information about available scholarships, visit ucmo.academicworks.com.