University encourages rural teachers

ST. CHARLES, Mo. -- Lindenwood University, which hasn't raised tuition in three years and already lets farming families trade hogs and steer for an education, is launching a new forgivable loan program for students who agree to teach in rural Missouri.

The school said last week that it will offer $4,000 annual, forgivable loans to students who agree to work in approved rural districts. School officials said they've budgeted about $400,000 to launch the program with 100 potential loans, with plans to forgive 25 percent of the loans yearly until they are paid off by new teachers who commit to rural areas.

Missouri school districts will have to agree to work with the university to spread the word about the program.

"They send us a top student, and we send them back a great teacher," said Dennis Spellmann, Lindenwood's president.

Lindenwood is an independent school that opened in 1827 and has about 13,000 students in a community 25 miles northwest of St. Louis.

, has made other efforts in recent years to reach out to families who may not feel they can afford to pay for a college or advanced degree, Spellmann said.

He said about a dozen students have used a school program that essentially barters agricultural products for tuition. For instance, a farming family can have pigs butchered at an approved processing plant; the school gets bacon and pork for the cafeteria, and a student gets financially closer to an education they might otherwise not receive.

Lindenwood already has a rural educators' scholarship program, where students can receive a renewable $5,000 scholarship. Students also can make $1,800 in work-study programs at the school. All of that helps with $11,200 tuition and $5,600 in room and board, which has held steady in cost in recent years.

Brooke Rinne, an education major from rural Licking, said she believes the teaching loans sound like a great idea. "I think this could really reach some people," said Rinne, 19.

The state's Department of Higher Education has not recorded any significant decline in the numbers of students receiving bachelor's degrees in education from 2000 to 2003, with the numbers about 2,200 annually.

But Ray Patrick, executive director with the Missouri Association of Rural Education, said recruiting rural teachers can be tough due to salaries that frequently are lower and locations that can be viewed as remote.

J.R. Stephens, a former Lindenwood student who now works as a principal in rural Crocker in Pulaski County, said the forgivable loans sound promising in the quest to help rural schools and children seeking higher education.

"For that, I have to pat them on the back," he said.

To qualify for the new loans, a student meet at least two of three criteria: they must be in the top 20 percent of their graduating class, have an ACT score of 25 or higher and a grade point average of at least 3.0.

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