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Brad Bell
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SALISBURY, Md. (7News) — If the signs outside her house don’t make it clear, Renee Calloway is happy to boast just a little about her Westlake High graduate and Salisbury University-bound son, Zion.
“He’s a music major with a minor in theater, and I could not be more proud of him,” said Calloway.
And she was really thrilled in May when he was awarded a need-based $18,000 state Guaranteed Access Grant, which, along with scholarships he’d earned, covered the entire cost of attending Salisbury. “I’m a single mother and I have another daughter coming up who is a senior,” she explains, “So that took a lot of pressure off about putting them through college.”
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Until earlier this week, when she got an email from Salisbury explaining Zion didn’t actually qualify for the grant and they’d have to figure out a way to pay. She says her mind raced, “For it to be August and school is starting in two weeks or starting in one week, that sent students and parents into a panic. That is inexplicable.”
So she reached out to 7 on Your Side. We contacted the Maryland Higher Education Commission, which sent us a statement saying, “Earlier this week, the Maryland Higher Education Commission (MHEC) learned that a system error by its vendor, Interclypse, led to incorrect eligibility determinations for the Guaranteed Access Grant awards. Due to this error, some students who were not eligible for awards based on household size and family income were incorrectly awarded funds."
MHEC will honor initial award decisions for students that the vendor has identified as having been impacted by this error. Although the exact number of affected students is still being verified, preliminary findings indicate that about 500–600 students (out of 11,000 who have been awarded) may have been impacted.
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The state is in the process of changing its scholarship management system. A new vendor has been selected, and a new system will be deployed by fall 2026.
The commission turned down our request for an interview. 7News has submitted a list of questions, including: How much money is going out to those who didn’t qualify? Where will the funds come from?, Will there be an effort to recover the funds from the vendor? We’ve been told they’re working on getting answers.
In the meantime, Renee Calloway has the answer she wanted. Zion moves into his dorm this weekend. Calloway says she is, “Super excited because he has a full ride now.”
But she, too, wonders how such a big mistake could be made. “It sent me into a big frenzy. A huge frenzy,” she says.