Cedar Crest College, a private liberal arts educational institution for women in Allentown, Pennsylvania, has announced the establishment of the State Tuition Access Rate (STAR) program. The college, which enrolls about 1,700 students, will offer academically qualified students the same tuition rate as the flagship public institution in their home states.
For the past three years, Cedar Crest College has offered qualified students from Pennsylvania the same tuition rate as they would pay at Pennsylvania State University. About 37 percent of the 2018 entering class took advantage of the program.
Now under the STAR program, qualified students from all states will be offered the same tuition as the flagship public institution in their own states. The STAR program is open to first-time, first-year students entering the college with a grade point average of 3.0 or higher and a combined SAT score of 1050 or higher.
Mary-Alice Ozechoski, vice president of enrollment and student affairs at Cedar Crest College, stated that the college “is passionate about the ability of a small, private, liberal arts education to provide students with life-changing opportunities, but we know that many families, particularly middle-class families with more than one child in college, may think they just can’t afford it. We want students who have put in the hard work to be academically successful during high school to have access to cutting-edge learning and co-curricular opportunities we offer, and this program can help close that gap.”