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Posse Scholarships

Posse Foundation scholarships are among the most prestigious awards for Lewis & Clark students. We are thrilled to welcome Posse Scholars to our institution, and we are committed to supporting you during your time as a Lewis & Clark student.

An important part of that commitment is clarity around what is covered by your award—and what isn’t. We do not want unexpected expenses to create stress for you!

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A Shared Partnership Philosophy

The Posse Scholar program at Lewis & Clark has a shared partnership philosophy: participants have a role to play in the success of the award. This means that Posse students (and their families to the extent that they’re able) and Lewis & Clark all contribute to financing the cost of attendance. The Posse Foundation provides resources to support your success as a student at Lewis & Clark.

Posse Foundation Partnership in Action

Here’s how the Posse Foundation shares responsibility to support your success in their award partnerships:

Posse Foundation: provides support and encouragement through Posse staff and regular check-ins. Provides programming for the annual Posse Plus Retreat.
Lewis & Clark: provides full-tuition Posse Scholarship plus other grant funding to meet demonstrated need after considering the Posse Scholarship, federal grants, Work-Study, and the subsidized federal student loan. L&C also partners with the Posse Foundation on the annual Posse Plus Retreat.
Student: works through the Federal Work-Study program (if awarded), borrows need-based federal loan (or secures externally funded scholarships to reduce or replace loan borrowing), participates in Posse activities, and is an active participant in campus life.
Family: provides financial support to the extent indicated through the financial aid process.

Note: All Posse Scholars, regardless of demonstrated financial need, are eligible for the full-tuition Posse Scholarship.

Additional Aid

Posse students who apply for financial aid by filing the FAFSA or other application can be awarded further aid based on demonstrated need (the difference between what it costs to attend L&C minus what the financial aid application says a family should be able to provide). This aid can cover things like room and board, travel to and from campus, books, and other expenses.

To meet the student’s demonstrated financial need not being covered by the full-tuition Posse Scholarship, the following aid sources are awarded in this order:

Federal Grants (Federal Pell and SEOG Grants)
Federal Work-Study (first-year students are awarded a reduced amount of work-study)
Subsidized Direct Stafford Loan
L&C/Posse Grant

Timeline

By July 1: If you plan to borrow your student loan, please accept your loan by July 1. In May, you’ll get access to Financial Aid Self Service and can accept your loan there. You’ll also need to go to your studentaid.gov account to complete Entrance Counseling and your Master Promissory Note.

By July 15: Research your health insurance options. If you have comparable coverage, waive the L&C student health insurance. If you’ll be using L&C’s insurance, email fao@lclark.edu and ask us to revise your aid to include coverage for the student health insurance.

By August 1: Have a plan for how you are going to get to campus and how you are going to purchase your books for the fall semester.

FAQ

Your Posse (full-tuition, merit-based) Scholarship, provided by Lewis & Clark to all Posse Scholars, covers the full cost of your tuition plus the ASB fee and student health fee. It does not cover miscellaneous course fees, fines, or late fees.

Depending on your demonstrated financial need, your award may cover many, but not all, of your expenses.

Your award may include funding to cover:

Tuition and/or L&C overseas program cost
Regular room charge
14-flex meal plan
L&C student health insurance (for students without comparable insurance coverage)
Standard airfare allowance of $1200 per year
Books ($400/semester) and modest personal expenses ($150/mo)

Your award does not cover:

Optional fees (green energy, media, course fees for music, PE, etc.)
Higher cost room or board plans
Dorm fines, library fines
Costs during breaks or between semesters

Lewis & Clark requires students to be covered by either the L&C student health insurance plan or by a comparable plan. If you do not have a plan that will provide you with comparable coverage while you are in Portland, you will be enrolled in and charged for L&C’s plan. This charge is in addition to the costs listed on your financial aid offer. Please contact the Financial Aid Office to determine if there is aid available to help you cover the cost of the L&C insurance. Usually additional aid would be a combination of grants and loans.

The cost of books and transportation is considered when determining eligibility for need-based financial aid. However, this aid will not be available until you arrive on campus. This means you will need to purchase your airfare to get to campus, and you should plan to arrive with approximately $400 to pay for your first semester books. You can then use your work-study earnings to help reimburse yourself for these up-front expenses.

Our commitment to providing the full-tuition scholarship plus meeting any additional demonstrated financial need remains the same in future years—up to 4 years (8 semesters of enrollment). Aid beyond the full-tuition Posse Scholarship requires filing a new financial aid application each year. Because family finances can change from year to year, the demonstrated financial need amount and the amount of additional grant aid awarded may also be different from year to year. However, we typically find that the demonstrated need for families is relatively stable throughout the time they are at Lewis & Clark. In subsequent years, Federal Work-Study (FWS) will increase from the first-year student amount to the regular amount. Regular FWS awards are usually still less than 10 hours a week of work.

The amount available through the subsidized federal student loan also increases in subsequent years. First-year students are awarded $3,500; sophomores are awarded $4,500; and juniors and seniors are awarded $5,500 each year. Student loan borrowing is not required, but Lewis & Clark is not able to increase other aid to offset the loans a student chooses not to borrow. Many Posse students are able to secure external scholarship funding (from community groups or other organizations), which allows them to reduce the amount of student loans they would otherwise need to borrow.

Four years of borrowing the maximum available through the direct subsidized federal student loan program is $19,000. Monthly payments for this amount of loan on the standard 10-year repayment plan would be approximately $250/month.

Posse Scholarships

A Shared Partnership Philosophy

Posse Foundation Partnership in Action

Additional Aid

Timeline

FAQ

What does full-tuition mean? Does my award cover all of my expenses?

Is health insurance included in my award?

Does my award pay for books? What about travel?

Is my award the same every year?