Lottery scholarships were handed out to 4,173 students at the University of Arkansas at Fayetteville for the semester, the most of any college in the state.
The Academic Challenge Scholarships, which are funded by the year-old Arkansas State Lottery, were made available to eligible students this year.
According to preliminary numbers compiled Aug. 29 by the Arkansas Department of Higher Education, University of Arkansas students earned 16.5 percent of all the scholarships awarded to incoming traditional students, 26.7 percent of the scholarships given to students who were enrolled in the university last year and 7.3 percent of all the scholarships received by nontraditional students.
University financial aid office records show that as of Sept. 22, 1,845 traditional students enrolled in the university received Academic Challenge Scholarships. A total of 1,362 current students received the scholarship, while 331 nontraditional students got it.
An additional 635 students earned the Academic Challenge Scholarship last year, before the lottery, and were awarded it again for this academic year.
The amount of the scholarship is $5,000 for four-year institutions and $2,500 for two-year colleges.
The Higher Ed department is expected to release final figures on the number of the scholarships, and the percentage received at each university, in early October.
The lottery raised at least $99 million for college scholarships in its first year, resulting in nearly 30,000 students offered scholarships under the program.
More than 50,000 applications were received for the scholarships, but around 6,700 did not meet the eligibility criteria. Thousands of others met the qualifications but have not been offered a scholarship because of an expected lack of funds, according to a Higher Ed official.
Information for this article was contributed by Michael Wickline of the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette.