MIKE McCLURE/Star-Tribune correspondent

Central Wyoming College students Cammie Yates, JoLyn Zwemer, Jessie Berch, Jacob Frederick, Andrew Steen and Sarah Hall say a generous scholarship program helped attract them to the school in Riverton.

RIVERTON - Want to know what Wyoming would look like if every high school student with a 2.5 grade point average had a college tuition scholarship?

You can get a glimpse on the Central Wyoming College campus.

A coalition of Wyoming legislators, executive branch officials and children's advocates recently proposed a $1 billion trust fund to boost preschool education and pay college tuition for most high school graduates.

CWC has more limited scholarship programs that give a fair approximation of how such a trust fund could work in Wyoming.

Ten years ago, CWC administrators were increasingly alarmed that their "capture rate" of talented, local high school graduates was going down. The school responded by offering all high school graduates with GPAs of 3.0 to 3.49 a tuition scholarship, and an "honors" tuition and general fees scholarship to those with a 3.5 or better GPA. The year after it was initiated, CWC saw a 16 percent increase in enrollment.

"We wanted to retain the best and the brightest of our high school graduates," said Mohammed Waheed, dean of student services at CWC.

As more community colleges began to offer competitive scholarships, CWC added a $300 book-or-additional-fees stipend to the honor scholarship, and the Quality Leader Scholarship (eight students per year) was increased from $1,500 annually to $2,500. Quality Leaders were exceptionally active in community activities during high school, and pledge to continue community activities during college.

"This has had quite an impact on us," Waheed said. Students offered scholarships came to CWC out of curiosity, and many stayed when they found "quality education at a reasonable cost."

Scholarship students attending CWC had offers of financial assistance from out-of-state schools, Waheed said, yet many decided to stay in-state, at Riverton.

"CWC has the best aid package I've seen," said JoLyn Zwemer, a freshman from Rocky Mountain High School in Byron and a pre-law student. She's a "Quality Leader" scholarship holder at CWC, and qualified with a 3.0 or better GPA.

As Quality Leaders, the students receive $2,500 per year toward tuition, room and board, books and fees.

Zwemer and five other Quality Leader students gathered recently in the CWC cafeteria to comment on the proposed trust fund and how it could help fellow students.

"I think it will give high school seniors hope - that they don't have to work for years and save up for college," Zwemer said. That's exactly what some of her old high school classmates back in Byron are doing now, she said.

"We're lucky we have these CWC scholarships," said Cammie Yates, also a Rocky Mountain High School grad who is majoring in biological sciences. "This (trust fund) would give students more options of where they'd like to go to school."

Andrew Steen, a first-year business major from Riverton, said he hoped the trust fund would also help nontraditional or older students who want to study after working several years after high school.

Jessie Berch, a first-year general science major from Lander, said, "Everyone needs help going to college."

Sarah Hall, an art major from Colorado Springs, Colo., said a free tuition program might not apply to out-of-state students, at least not fully.

"I think it's a great opportunity to really focus on your studies, really learn the subject, rather than scrape by while you're working full time," said Jacob Frederick, a business major from Shoshoni High School.

Jacque Burns, the CWC financial aid director, said about 150 CWC students participate in the honors and high school graduate scholarship programs this year. Since the scholarship programs started, more CWC students have earned associate's degrees or gone on to finish studies at four-year schools, including the University of Wyoming.

"Scholarships have made a huge difference," she said, improving outcomes in the CWC student body from 35 percent to 68 percent since the scholarships started in 1995.