Washington, Oregon students eligible for expanded University of Idaho scholarship

High school graduates from Washington and Oregon with an accredited high school GPA will be eligible to receive savings of up to $11,000 annually on tuition and fees at the University of Idaho starting this fall with the expansion of the Western Undergraduate Exchange Program scholarship.

The WUE scholarship has been offered at the UI for at least the past 15 years, according to UI Communications Coordinator Brad Gary, but it has undergone a number of changes during that time, including a restructuring in 2010 when the UI restricted its use to students from university honors, diversity, performing arts and national merit programs.

Now, a minimum 22 ACT or 1020 SAT score is required for home-schooled students or graduates from non-accredited high schools and a 3.0 transfer GPA is required for new Washington or Oregon transfer students.

The award will be renewable for the entire four years of a student’s UI career, so long as the student maintains a 2.5 GPA, according to documentation from the UI.

The increased availability of the scholarship won’t hurt the UI’s goal of increasing enrollment 50 percent by 2024, either.

“As UI continues toward its goal for increasing enrollment, it makes sense to extend our efforts to improve access to our neighbors across the borders of Oregon and Washington,” Dean Kahler, UI vice provost for strategic enrollment management, said in February.

Dan Davenport, director of financial aid services, agreed.

“There’s so many people who live so close to the University of Idaho but who live on the other side of the state lines,” he said in a statement Wednesday to the Daily News. “We want to welcome those people to the University of Idaho.”

The WUE award will replace the Discover Idaho program, which provided merit scholarships that paid a portion of non-resident tuition.