Catch-9/11

When Fairfield University established a scholarship fund to benefit people who had lost loved ones in the September 11 attacks, officials figured the money would help students who needed it most. What the officials didn’t count on, says a university spokeswoman, “was that the American public would be so generous.”

And so it is that Sharon Hoey, a junior at the Connecticut university whose father died in the attacks, does not qualify for the scholarship because her family has received too much money from the federal government and private benefactors.

Ms. Hoey argues that Fairfield is violating a commitment, to both students and donors. She says that many people who had known her father donated to the scholarship fund, thinking it would help cover her college expenses. “It’s not much of an honor if it’s not going to benefit anyone,” she says. (Last month, however, Fairfield did honor her father, Patrick A. Hoey, with a plaque that was unveiled on the campus. Mr. Hoey had worked for the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey.)

After Ms. Hoey was denied the scholarship, a private foundation picked up the tab for her tuition this semester. But she says she is not sure how she will pay for tuition in the spring. She declines to say how much her family received in death benefits -- or what it is doing with the money.

Nancy Habetz, the Fairfield spokeswoman, says the university is “very comfortable with its position on the scholarship,” pointing out that the fund is intended for future students, not just current ones.

“Who knows what the family’s financial situation will be by the time some of these kids grow up?” she says.

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http://chronicle.com Section: Short Subjects Volume 49, Issue 12, Page A8