Michigan tuition sweepstakes gives 10 students chance to win $50,000 for completing FAFSA
Michigan officials launched a "Ticket to Tuition" giveaway April 16 that will give students pursuing higher education the chance to win up to $50,000 to cover education expenses by completing the Free Application for Federal Student Aid, or FAFSA.
The form unlocks both federal and state support for college-bound students, as well as those headed to career schools. The Michigan sweepstakes will give ten students the chance to win $50,000 and 40 students a chance at $10,000. The cash prize will be held in a Michigan Education Savings Program account for winning students to use to pay for a range of education expenses, including tuition, textbooks and room and board.
"Filling out the FAFSA makes you eligible for tens of thousands of dollars of in-state and federal scholarships, and with today's sweepstakes, you can earn some extra money, too," Gov. Gretchen Whitmer said during a launch event at Eastern High School in Lansing.
The Michigan Department of Lifelong Education, Advancement, and Potential partnered with the Michigan College Access Network — a nonprofit that aims to increase the number of Michigan students that complete college — on the giveaway. Democratic lawmakers in 2024 approved the funds for the incentive program, encouraging students to complete the FAFSA form. The winning funds are already set aside in the current state budget approved in the last legislative session. The funding is one-time, and lawmakers have not decided whether to set aside similar funding again in the next state budget for another sweepstakes in the future.
To enter the sweepstakes, Michigan students and parents must create an account on studentaid.gov to fill out the FAFSA form and then the student must text "CASH" to 855-50K-TICKET or 855-505-8425. Students who have already completed their FAFSA form can also participate by sending the text message. Students can also mail an entry form available at tickettotuition.com and send it to: "Ticket to Tuition Entry, c/o Güd Marketing, 1223 Turner Street, Suite 101, Lansing, MI 48906."
The deadline to enter is May 16.
A random drawing will be conducted in late May. The contest is open to legal U.S. residents living in Michigan who complete the FAFSA form for the first-time to use during the 2025-26 school year.
Michigan Education: Preschool is free for all families in Michigan — but many don't know about it
Whitmer wants to boost the share of Michigan residents who pursue post-secondary education and skills training and has set a goal of reaching 60% of Michigan adults with a skill certificate or college degree by 2030. That share stands at about 52%, according to the most recent data shared by Whitmer from the Lumina Foundation, whose analysis her administration has used to track progress made toward reaching target.
During the sweepstakes launch event, the governor touted the Michigan Achievement Scholarship, which provides financial aid for college and university, and the Michigan Achievement Skills Scholarship, which provides support for a career training program. Whitmer also championed the Community College Guarantee, which provides a tuition-free path for graduating high school students to attend their local community college.
"We don't want any student to leave money on the table," Whitmer said.
Contact Clara Hendrickson at chendrickson@freepress.com or 313-296-5743.
This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: Michigan sweepstakes will award 50 students for FAFSA form
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Business Insider
44 minutes ago
- Business Insider
Howard Lutnick says bananas — a tropical fruit — should be grown in the US
The Secretary of Commerce and a Congresswoman just clashed over whether bananas can and should be grown in the US. "There's no uncertainty if you build in America and you produce your product in America, there will be no tariff," Howard Lutnick told Rep. Madeleine Dean of Philadelphia during a House hearing on Thursday morning. Dean was saying that for her constituents in suburban Philadelphia, Trump's tariffs would cause at least a $2,000 a year price increase on goods. She specifically called out the price of bananas and said Walmart has already hiked the price of the fruit by 8%. "We can't produce bananas in America," the Democratic congresswoman responded. "The concept of building in America and paying no tariff is very, very clear," Lutnick said. "We cannot build bananas in America," Dean repeated. Large-scale banana farms are not viable in much of the US. However, bananas are grown in Hawaii and in parts of Florida, and can be grown in other parts of the Southern United States. In 2023, Hawaii produced 4.73 million pounds of the fruit, according to the Department of Agriculture. Rep. Dean's office did not immediately respond to a request for comments. The debate over bananas took place over a House hearing about trade deficits and the uncertainty Trump's tariff plan has caused since its rollout in April. Under Trump's April 2 tariffs, a 10% baseline tariff applies to all goods imported into the US, including bananas. Though additional higher tariffs on trading partners are currently on pause for a limited time, some additional tariffs apply for products from China, as well as for imports of all steel and some other categories of metals. Banana plants thrive in tropical regions with average temperatures of 80°F and a recommended relative humidity of 70 to 80%, according to EOS Data Analytics. The data company that provides crop monitoring services also wrote that farmers grow most bananas within a 30-degree range north and south of the equator. According to figures from the American Farm Bureau Federation, in 2023, Guatemala supplied 40% of bananas consumed in the US by value, followed by Ecuador and Costa Rica, each contributing 16%.
Yahoo
2 hours ago
- Yahoo
Supreme Court hands DOGE big wins in Social Security, records cases
The Supreme Court on Friday handed the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) two major victories in its expanding legal battle over drastic efforts to reshape the federal bureaucracy. In two separate emergency rulings issued simultaneously, the court lifted a block on DOGE personnel accessing sensitive Social Security Administration (SSA) systems and wiped a ruling forcing DOGE to turn over discovery in a records lawsuit. Both rulings appeared to be along the Supreme Court's ideological lines, with the court's three Democratic-appointed justices publicly dissenting. The decisions come as President Trump's relationship with billionaire tech mogul Elon Musk, the face of DOGE for months, publicly imploded Thursday. His administration continues to defend DOGE's work in the courts. In the Social Security case, the justices lifted a Maryland-based federal judge's order blocking DOGE from snooping around the SSA's systems that contain personally identifiable information, including Social Security numbers, medical and mental health records, bank data, and earnings history. The majority did not explain the reasoning, only saying that the 'SSA may proceed to afford members of the SSA DOGE Team access to the agency record' under the present circumstances. In dissent, Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson, joined by Justice Sonia Sotomayor, said the Trump administration hadn't met the court's high bar for emergency relief, accusing her colleagues of 'jettisoning careful judicial decisionmaking.' 'The Court is thereby, unfortunately, suggesting that what would be an extraordinary request for everyone else is nothing more than an ordinary day on the docket for this Administration,' Jackson wrote. 'I would proceed without fear or favor to require DOGE and the Government to do what all other litigants must do to secure a stay from this Court,' she continued. Justice Elena Kagan also dissented, but she did not join the duo's opinion. The challenge to DOGE's ability to poke around in the SSA's systems came from a coalition of government unions, backed by the left-leaning legal group Democracy Forward, that claimed DOGE's unfettered access to the sensitive data ran afoul of privacy laws and the SSA's own rules and regulations. U.S. District Judge Ellen Hollander's order allowed the SSA to provide DOGE with access to redacted or anonymized data and records, but it required DOGE agents to receive the necessary training for those systems. She wrote that DOGE's efforts to slim down the federal bureaucracy weren't the problem at hand, but rather 'how they want to do the work.' Hollander is an appointee of former President Obama. Solicitor General D. John Sauer had argued that her preliminary injunction undermined DOGE's mission to streamline and modernize the government while rooting out waste and fraud. He criticized the nationwide relief as a 'now-familiar theme,' alluding to several Justice Department emergency appeals challenging universal injunctions — a practice the justices heard arguments about last month in the administration's appeal of an order blocking Trump's bid to narrow birthright citizenship. 'The government cannot eliminate waste and fraud if district courts bar the very agency personnel with expertise and the designated mission of curtailing such waste and fraud from performing their jobs,' Sauer wrote in the government's emergency application. The Supreme Court's second emergency decision stems from a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit against DOGE. The government had asked the justices to overturn a judge's order allowing limited discovery into whether DOGE is an 'agency,' which would dictate whether it's subject to FOIA requests. U.S. District Judge Christopher Cooper, an appointee of Obama, directed the release of all 'recommendations' DOGE made to various federal agencies, in addition to other internal documents. He also ordered a deposition of acting DOGE Administrator Amy Gleason. By agreeing to wipe that order, the Supreme Court's decision marks a major victory for the Trump administration's efforts to keep DOGE's inner workings behind the veil. The majority said Cooper's order was 'not appropriately tailored' to whether DOGE was an agency. 'Furthermore, separation of powers concerns counsel judicial deference and restraint in the context of discovery regarding internal Executive Branch communications,' the court wrote in its unsigned ruling. The three Democratic-appointed justices again publicly dissented, but they didn't offer an explanation. Sauer argued that DOGE is a 'presidential advisory body' housed within the Executive Office of the President — not an agency. He said that Cooper's order would 'significantly distract' from DOGE's mission to identify and eliminate 'fraud, waste and abuse' within the federal government, calling the discovery ordered 'extraordinarily overbroad and intrusive.' 'That order turns FOIA on its head,' Sauer claimed, 'effectively giving respondent a win on the merits of its FOIA suit under the guise of figuring out whether FOIA even applies.' The legal challenge was mounted by Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, which argued that the public has a right to know about DOGE's 'secretive operations.' It is one of many designed to test whether DOGE must respond to FOIA requests. Several legal battles linked to DOGE have reached the Supreme Court, but these two cases are the first where DOGE is a respondent. Updated at 5:19 p.m. EDT Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
Yahoo
2 hours ago
- Yahoo
With $122M spent, the 2025 governor's race is already New Jersey's most expensive
Spending totals for this campaign have already more than doubled those in every gubernatorial primary since at least the turn of the millennium. (Dana DiFilippo | New Jersey Monitor) Candidates and outside groups have spent more than $122.5 million on this year's gubernatorial primary, a total greater than any other in state history and one that stands to rise in the race's closing days, the New Jersey Election Law Commission said Friday. The spending total includes $54.9 million from the candidates themselves and $67.7 million from outside groups. Between them, $14 million remained unspent, and that number could swell from late-arriving donations to independent expenditure groups, which face no contribution limits. Voting is underway and ends Tuesday. Spending totals for this campaign have already more than doubled those in every gubernatorial primary since at least the turn of the millennium and have outpaced even the most expensive gubernatorial general election. That November 2005 race between Democrat Jon Corzine and Republican Doug Forrester cost about $98 million after adjustments to inflation, the commission said. This year's 11 gubernatorial candidates had about $6.7 million left in reserves on May 27, the last date covered by regular pre-election campaign finance disclosures. The commission credited the number of candidacies and a larger gubernatorial fund match for the increase. Candidates who meet fundraising and spending thresholds can receive up to $5.5 million in matching public dollars for the primary in exchange for observing an $8.7 million primary spending cap and participating in debates hosted by the commission. Five of the eight candidates have maxed out or nearly maxed out their matching funds. Of the $54.9 million spent by the candidates, Democrats Jersey City Mayor Steve Fulop and Rep. Mikie Sherrill lead the pack, with Fulop spending nearly $8.7 million and Sherrill shelling out $8.5 million as of May 27. Republican Jack Ciattarelli, who unsuccessfully ran for governor in 2017 and 2021, spent $8 million, followed by Rep. Josh Gottheimer, a Democrat, at $7.9 million. Spending by outside groups is dominated by Working New Jersey, a super PAC funded by an independent expenditure group linked to statewide teachers union the New Jersey Education Association. It is responsible for more than half of the outside spending in the race, with at least $37.5 million boosting Democrat Sean Spiller, the union's president. Spiller's own campaign has spent only $342,059. Spiller's Democratic rivals have seen less but still sizable support from independent expenditure groups. They have boosted Rep. Josh Gottheimer to the tune of $11.6 million; Fulop, $7.4 million; former state Sen. Steve Sweeney, $4.3 million; and Sherrill, $3.8 million. A group run in part by Trump ally Kellyanne Conway has spent $1.3 million supporting Ciattarelli's campaign. Gubernatorial totals far exceed fundraising and spending on this year's Assembly races (all 80 seats in the chamber are on the ballot this year). Not counting independent expenditures, Assembly candidates have raised nearly $26.3 million and spent about $15.4 million, the commission said. Most of that money, $20.8 million, has flowed to incumbents. Collectively, challengers have raised just under $5.5 million. The ratio is similarly split along party lines. Democratic candidates account for $21.6 million of the funds raised, while only $4.7 million went to Republicans. SUBSCRIBE: GET THE MORNING HEADLINES DELIVERED TO YOUR INBOX
