•January 8, 2025•

Eastern Illinois University encourages eligible students to explore two of the University’s highest-impact scholarships and to submit their application materials by the shared January 10 deadline. 

Two unique opportunities are being championed by EIU scholarship coordinators ahead of this Friday’s deadline—EIU’s Presidential Scholarships and EIU’s Sarah Bush Lincoln Nursing Scholarships. Both are high-impact, high-reward scholarships for top-performing, admitted EIU freshman. Details on each are available below:

EIU’s Presidential Scholarships—EIU’s Presidential Scholarships are available to incoming, admitted freshmen with eligible GPAs or ACT/SAT composite scores. For exceptionally strong incoming freshmen, the Sandra and Jack Pine Honors College offers three different competitive scholarships awarded over four years:

• Full-ride Pemberton Presidential Scholarship* (approximately $101,000 over four years)

• Full-tuition Presidential Scholarship* (approximately $55,000 over four years)

• Honors Award for Incoming Freshmen (approximately $14,000 over four years, in addition to the automatic Merit Scholarship, worth up to $16,000 over four years, for a total of approximately $30,000 over four years)

*Applicants for the Pemberton Presidential and the Presidential Scholarship are also considered as applicants for the Honors Award. Students do not need to complete an additional application for the Honors Award.

EIU’s Sarah Bush Lincoln Nursing Scholarships for the EIU Gail & Richard Lumpkin School of Nursing—these are full-ride scholarships for local, high-achieving, first-semester Nursing students meeting eligible GPA requirements. Recipients must be a full-time admitted incoming freshman majoring in Pre-Nursing or Nursing. This scholarship is available to students from 10 of EIU’s surrounding counties across East Central Illinois.

Interested applicants can visit eiu.edu/nurse/SBL_Scholarship.php for more details.

Note that while these two scholarship opportunities have application deadlines of January 10, most other EIU scholarships have a deadline of March 15. For students looking for opportunities beyond what’s outlined here, interested applicants can access hundreds of other available scholarships and eligibility guidelines through eiu.academicworks.com. Students can log in with their EIU NetID and password to see and apply to scholarships tailored to their academic/demographic profile(s). 

EIU awarded more than $49 million in gift aid to nearly 4,000 undergraduate students last academic year, averaging $12,587 in support per student. This assistance helps EIU remain the lowest cost-of-attendance University in Illinois.

EIU prepares students to accomplish their life goals through a combination of quality academics, personal relationships, and both on-campus and online learning opportunities. For more information about Eastern Illinois University, including its broad array of academic and career readiness programs, or any of EIU’s other community-based services and opportunities, visit eiu.edu or call EIU’s public information office at (217) 581-7400.