By Jenae Hackensmith, Austin Daily Herald

AUSTIN — The Minnesota State Colleges and University’s Access to Excellence scholarship campaign is in its first year and already is seeing positive results from the state’s colleges.

Riverland Community College Dean for Institutional Advancement Steve Bowron said it fit nicely with what the college has already been doing.

“With the skills-gap issues that are out there … we wanted to find a way that could really make it, as much as possible, easier for students, and decrease some of the financial barriers that these students are facing,” Bowron said. “One way to do that is through scholarships.”

The Access to Excellence campaign is a program by MnSCU to have all the colleges and their affiliated foundations focus on creating more scholarships for students. The campaign, which is in its first year and has 42 foundations affiliated, raised about $17.4 million dollars overall in scholarship gifts, which was 74 percent ahead of its first-year goal of $10 million. According to Bowron, Riverland raised a total of $371,432, and awarded 478 scholarships in 2014 fiscal year.

The scholarships come from a variety of sponsors, including individual sponsors, businesses, community organizations and the Riverland Community College Foundation. About 60 percent of the sponsors are individuals.

With the new campaign, Bowron said Riverland reports on a quarterly basis where they stand in terms of scholarships. Bowron pointed out the foundation started looking into increasing scholarships in 2012.