The Hope Scholarship, a scholarship program designed for first-generation business students, is preparing to close out its first year on a high note and plans to come back even stronger next semester. According to the program manager, Andrae Griffin, a first-generation UVU alumni, the program started out with 17 students in the 2024 fall semester, and by this semester had 28 under its wings. The program was started as a way to help and mentor first-generation students as they navigate through college. Griffin describes what many first-generation Wolverines are dealing with as “the hidden curriculum,” a term used to describe university life, or navigating through it. Many non-first-generation students are at least partially prepared for diving into university life, something that many first-generation Wolverines aren’t prepared for.
According to Griffin, many first-generation students can often feel invisible. Their needs aren’t always met, and they can find themselves struggling to meet the high demands of university courses. The Hope Scholarship was founded and designed to help these business majors feel like they belong and to continue on with college. According to UVU statistics, first-gen students seeking a bachelor’s degree graduate at a rate almost 3 times lower than their counterparts, and a whopping 37% of Wolverines are first-generation, the highest of any university in the state of Utah. “UVU has the most first-generation students in Utah, in any university. If you look on the UVU website, that puts exactly how many we have, it’s in the tens of thousands.” Griffin stresses the importance of persistence in order to prevent dropouts and to keep students coming back each semester until they earn their degree.
Currently, the program is only available for business students, but Griffin hopes to expand it to other departments in the university. “I’m a first-generation student, I’m finishing my master’s this fall in Marriage and Family Therapy and I would love to see a program like this in the Behavioral Health College.” Programs like the Hope Scholarship can assist students to have a positive educational outcome like Griffin’s and help them attain their goals. Griffin’s hopes are that more and more first-generation Wolverines seek out the program so that they can better navigate college and find places across campus that they can belong to.
