FAQs
How does TMF calculate whether or not a student needs financial assistance for college?
TMF uses a basic mathematical formula which takes into account income, whether or not there are other college students in the family and other fundamental elements. TMF doesn't take into account GPA, SAT or ACT test scores, extra-curricular activities or anything other than the financial situation of each applicant.
What if a student ends up enrolling at a different college than was listed on the application?
Because attending a different school may have an effect on your tuition award (you may be eligible for a higher award, for instance), you should let us know immediately if your school changes.
Who are sponsors, and why are recipients required to write to them?
Every TMF recipient is assigned a list of up to half a dozen sponsors, who are the folks who donate to TMF (or whose families have done so). We ask our students to write to the sponsors twice yearly in order to provide a broad update about the student's studies, job, family, hobbies and so on. Recipients send signed, dated letters directly to their sponsors, with a copy to the TMF offices. This helps create communication and engagement between students and sponsors, and provides a valuable way for students to thank sponsors directly for their financial support.
Some awards listed on the website are described as "perpetual." What does that mean?
Perpetual awards are ones which have been endowed with $1,000 or more in donations in a single, consecutive twelve-month period. This could be 100 $10 donations from different individuals and organizations, or a single $1,000 bequest from an individual's will and every permutation in between. For perpetual awards, TMF takes these donations and invests them, using only the income from the invested funds to make tuition awards. That means that even if no more funds are ever donated for that particular award, it will be awarded forever. This is a comfort to many families, and an ongoing tribute to the individual(s) for whom the award is named.
What is the TMF policy on the use of artificial intelligence?
Since its inception, the Tuition Mission Foundation has required scholarship recipients to write personal letters (not emails or texts) twice annually to their sponsors. Sponsors are the generous individuals, families, businesses, clubs and more who support the foundation’s vital work.
Recipients may not use AI for their sponsor letters. If the officers and directors don’t feel that a student’s letters “sound” like they were written by the student, out of an abundance of caution, that student may be required to re-write those letters in person at the Tuition Mission offices, overseen by a proctor. Recipients who use artificial intelligence for sponsor letters run the risk of forfeiting their tuition awards.
Tuition Mission officers and directors will not debate, with students or their secondary contact(s), whether or not letters have been produced with AI assistance, either wholly or in part. This is essentially an honor system, which means that judgment calls and intuition are our primary tools.
We ask students to remember this: the purpose of sponsor letters is to forge a connection between you and the individuals or groups who are generous enough to help fund your education. You will likely never meet your sponsors in person, but this bond is important because it strengthens not only an affiliation between you and the sponsors, but also between the sponsors and Tuition Mission.
When a student doesn’t bother writing these letters personally, that choice promotes, in ways both subtle and conspicuous, the idea that twice-yearly communication with these supporters is a trivial matter. That's unfair to our generous sponsors, and betrays the spirit of education, integrity, fair dealing and hard work long promoted by Tuition Mission. Rather than using artificial intelligence for your letters and thus risk forfeiting part of your tuition award, it’s best just to write them yourself.
