Affordable education, close to home

BRADY KRAUSE
PHOTOGRAPHER

GRACE MAIN
COPY EDITOR

1/26/2026

For the 2026/27 school year, Alma College is offering a new scholarship called Tartan Edge, an initiative that will make the Alma education more affordable for local students who want to stay close to home post high school. 

“We want to encourage students in this area to come and attend Alma and we want to support our local area as much as we can,” said Doug Freed, Vice President of Enrollment Management, Communication and Marketing. 

The Tartan Edge scholarship brings the price of tuition, room, and meals to $17,000 for first-year students, increasing by $1,500 each year. This is open to all students graduating from high schools in Gratiot, Montcalm, and Isabella counties, which is an alternative to the Alma College Community Engagement (ACE) Scholarship, which also was to bring in local students, but only 20 were able to receive it. 

“I feel like the biggest purpose of Tartan Edge and the rebranding of ACE is to bring more local students to Alma because that is a concern, that Alma is a more expensive school within Michigan and Tartan Edge is able to reduce that cost for more local students rather than just 20 which is how ACE was set up,” said Hanna Scott (’23), Assistant Director of Admissions. 

“I had pretty much always wanted to stay close (to home), but I didn’t originally think I was going to come here. ACE solidified my decision and is allowing me to graduate debt free. I think that many students in and around Alma struggle with coming to Alma due to the price, so having the [(Tartan Edge]) scholarship will definitely increase the amount of people that come,” said Makaila Boatman (‘28), a current ACE Scholar who graduated from Alma High School. 

Students who receive the Tartan Edge scholarship are still able to receive Michigan Achievement and Pell Grants to further bring down the cost, and students who wish to commute to Alma are still able to do so as long as they live within the 25 mile radius- however the $17,000 price does not change. 

Due to the enrollment issues that small colleges across the United States are experiencing, Tartan Edge is also a way to increase numbers of students for the future. Currently, enrollment numbers are overall up from last year for the incoming class of 2030. Being in its first year, Tartan Edge is still new and growing, meaning that it is only getting more popular. 

“We have already seen an increase in deposits for this year than we did last year, I feel like now with the change of Tartan Edge and now that we are doing a lot to promote it, we are going to see an increase in local students,” said Scott. 

“We’ve seen it increase in interest certainly, and right now our deposits for fall are up from the area, overall, we hope that this will increase enrollment as well as serve the local area,” said Freed. 

Promoting Tartan Edge through word-of-mouth to local high schools is one of the ways for this scholarship to grow as one of the initiatives that the college is doing to increase enrollment and make post-secondary education more accessible. 

“This is one of many initiatives we do- we’re doing things across the state, different activities, initiatives and programs, and we hope that this is one that proves attractive to new students in this area,” said Freed.