Free Tuition at Northwestern University Thanks to Your Ancestry

Study that family tree chart closely. If you are a direct descendant of any of 340 specific men, you, your children, grandchildren, and even later generations may be able to obtain free tuition to  Northwestern University. That is a present value of more than $134,000 over four years.

Founded in 1851 by Methodists from Chicago (including John Evans, after whom Evanston is named), Northwestern opened in 1855 with two faculty members and ten students. The school apparently had financial concerns in its early years and sent salesmen throughout the Midwest offering perpetual scholarships, a tactic used by many universities at the time.

Here is a partial text of the perpetual scholarship agreement purchased by Richard Rounsavell on Dec. 31, 1866, for $100:

"Whereas Richard C. Rounsavell of Chicago has paid the sum of $100 to the Northwestern University, located at Evanston in Cook County in the State of Illinois, now therefore the said Northwestern University guarantees to the said Richard C. Rounsavell for himself, his sons and legally adopted sons and grandsons and the legatees of this scholarship as hereinafter provided forever the right of perpetual free tuition in either the literary or scientific department of said university in all the studies that are or may be necessary to graduation."

Of course, Northwestern was an all-male school in those days; so, the phrase "his sons and legally adopted sons and grandsons” was appropriate at the time. The school has since gone coed, and Northwestern today interprets the original agreement to include daughters.

At least ten descendants of Richard C. Rounsavell have used the scholarship. When he purchased the perpetual scholarship in 1866, tuition was $45 a year. That price has now escalated to $33,500 per year.  Rounsavell's investment of $100 seems to have produced a rather good rate of return for his ten descendants.

In all, the school sold 340 of these scholarships between 1853 and 1867, said Patrick Quinn, university archivist. The school cannot say how many have been redeemed.

Comments

[Robert Franklin]

This is an excellent example of the benefits of genealogy research. Great article but you did not mention where or how to find the names of the men that bought the perpetual scholarships.

[Karen]

Is there some place that we can find a list of these 340 people who bought the perpetual scholarships so long ago or does one need to have inherited the actual certificate to qualify?

[Joanne]

I also would like to know where to locate a list of names of the people who purchased a perpetual scholarship back in 1853-1867. Thank you

[Ann Lamb]

http://www.northwestern.edu/features/historic_moments/11_5_00_scholarship.html:

"However, the provisions remain in effect that only one family member per generation may use the scholarships and that the scholarship must be bequeathed specifically to a descendant."

No list of names of original purchasers. Useful publicity, but I doubt that they want to make this easy to claim.

[Shirley Cox]

Please, can you tell me how to find a list of the names. Shirley

[Dick Eastman]

The only ones who would have that list would be the school. However, I suspect it is in the school's best interest to not publish the list.

[Sharon]

I believe you would know if you were entitled. According to the Northwestern web site, "the provisions remain in effect that only one family member per generation may use the scholarships and that the scholarship must be bequeathed specifically to a descendant."

[Gen]

There are many other requirements and legal red tape to get through before being accepted into Northwestern - The hardest would be excellent grades and the original perpetual parchment paper agreement just to name two... Read on:

Thanks to a $100 payment made almost 150 years ago by her great-great-grandfather, Northwestern junior Barrett Bridenhagen will graduate next spring without ever having paid a cent of tuition to the University.

"I feel like a ghost from the past reached out to give me this gift," says Bridenhagen, who is just one of nearly 350 students in the University's 150 years to attend Northwestern on a perpetual scholarship.

Sold from 1853 to 1867 for $100, perpetual scholarships entitled their buyers free tuition for all direct male descendants in perpetuity. After the University opened its doors to women in 1869, the provisions of the scholarship were broadened to include female heirs.

According to University archivist Patrick Quinn, most of the buyers were prosperous Methodist farmers and small business owners who bought the scholarships from early University leaders such as Clark Hinman and Philo Judson, both of whom traveled the Midwest on horseback peddling the scholarships.
Proceeds from the scholarships, then an important source of income, were used to fund the construction of buildings. In all about $75,000 was raised through their sale.

Fewer and fewer of the free-tuition certificates are being used today because of the passage of time and strict regulations on their use. As of 1960, 341 scholarships had been issued, but only a few families have managed to keep them active since then. Bridenhagen, a philosophy major from Sister Bay, Wis., is the only current Northwestern student still on a perpetual scholarship.

"Even now, from time to time, people will find these things in their attics and try to cash them in," Quinn says. "It's like finding a winning lottery ticket. There are hundreds still out there, but most of them have some problem that makes them invalid."

The most common of those problems is the failure of the original and subsequent owners to specifically bequeath the scholarship to a descendant in a will, as required by Office of Financial Aid guidelines set down in 1959.

Also, as the original contracts state: "[The scholarship] does not waive the necessity of passing satisfactory entrance requirements or conforming in all respects with the University's admission requirements." In other words, even with the scholarship in hand, you still need the grades and the test scores to be accepted into Northwestern.

The 1959 guidelines also clarify that only one family member per generation may use the scholarship and that the student must still pay room, board and other fees.

Even so, with tuition costs at Northwestern now totaling almost $25,000 a year, receiving a perpetual scholarship is truly comparable to hitting it big in the lottery.

Bridenhagen has her great-great-grandfather Efraim Wheeler, a farmer from Elk Grove Township, Ill., to thank for her free college ride; he purchased the scholarship in 1855. Strangely enough, however, Bridenhagen is the first person in her family's long lineage to use the scholarship.

On a tip from her grandmother, she located and contacted her first cousin twice removed, Cherie-Marie Bjustrom (WCAS40), who still had the original parchment document that was bought by Wheeler. After painstakingly researching the history of the scholarship with Quinn and University lawyers, the family made arrangements for Bjustrom to properly bequeath the scholarship to Bridenhagen, thus making her eligible to use it.
"I figured that the prospect of saving $100,000 over four years might be worth a little paperwork and some investigating," Bridenhagen says.

But in spite of that six-figure cost to the University, officials aren't discounting the perpetual scholarships' importance in keeping the fledgling school afloat during the mid-1800s.

"Even the 350 of these perpetual scholarships that have been cashed in over the years amount to small potatoes when compared with their financial impact on the school during its early years," Quinn says. "Without perpetual scholarships, Northwestern might not be here today."

Ed Fanselow, a junior in the Medill School of Journalism, is an editorial assistant for Northwestern magazine.

[Damaris Fish]

Family tradition in our family had it that there was a similar deal with the Loomis School (now Loomis-Chafee) for descendants of founders, but they avow no knowledge....

[jim]

please send me some info about university scholar ship

[Damaris Fish]

This has been interesting reading, genealogy sleuthing. I am not eligible, but it interesting. Here is another story about Northwestern's Perpetual Scholarships -

http://www.northwestern.edu/magazine/northwestern/spring2001/first150_long_feature.htm