Increases in the price of tuition at colleges across the state means fewer Lilly Scholars may be coming to DePauw.
This year, 142 students have received Lilly Endowment scholarships, down from 216 in 2010.
"As you look down the road there could be fewer Lilly scholars," said Dan Meyer, vice president for Admission and Financial Aid. "Those are some of our best students academically and really we don't have to add much to their financial aid package because the scholarship covers most of it."
The Lilly Endowment Community Scholarship Program was started in 1998, to offer four-year, full-tuition scholarships to students living in Indiana who plan to attend an in-state institution to earn their degree. The program is led by the Independent Colleges of Indiana.
Scholars come from any of the 92 counties in the state and in past years, at least two students from each county could be nominated to receive the scholarship. Now, the number of nominees allowed is based on the population of each county.
Freshmen Jenna McFarland and Katherine Richards are both scholars from Parke County, which is now only granted one student nomination since its population falls below 50,000.
"I definitely wouldn't be here if I didn't have the scholarship," McFarland said. "My sister graduated from here last year and she didn't get it and it was really hard on my family, so I knew I wasn't going to be able to come here unless I got it."
Richards had a back-up school in mind in the event that she didn't receive the scholarship.
"I'd be at Hanover," she said. "I'd basically already enrolled before I got the scholarship."
The change was fueled by a major increase in the cost to support each scholar. At the start of the program, it cost about $50,000 for tuition and fees for scholars over four years. For the incoming class of scholars, the average cost is estimated at $106,000, according to a news release on the program's website.
"Most of it is because when they [students] get the scholarship they feel they can go to the more expensive schools," Richards said. "I think that's one of the reasons they're cutting back."
Despite the adjustment to the scholarship, Meyer says the university is still on pace to have a similar number of scholars in the incoming class as in years past.
"Some years we've had as many as 15," Meyer said. "In a typical year we have 8-10."
Ten Lilly scholars have been accepted into the class of 2015 and five have sent in their acceptance deposits, Meyer said.