Yuma universities offer tuition break for future teachers

Two universities in the Yuma area are expanding a program that helps provide a cheap education to prospective teachers.

Both Northern Arizona University-Yuma and Arizona State University Yuma are growing their Arizona Teachers Academy programs, which allow students getting a degree in education to take advantage of a tuition waiver.

The waiver takes care of all tuition and mandatory fees after scholarships and grants are applied, and for each year that a student takes advantage of it, they must work one year in an Arizona school. If a student is unable to fulfill this obligation, they have to repay the cost of tuition.

Though Governor Doug Ducey initiated the program in 2017, it was only granted dedicated funding a few months ago when the state’s 2019 budget was adopted.

According to Robert Morse, the executive director of professional experiences at ASU’s Mary Lou Fulton Teachers College, before this year’s budget, universities had to source their own funding for the initiative.

Now that the program is on more stable financial ground going into the Fall semester, all degrees that work toward a teacher certification at NAU-Yuma — including graduate degrees — will be eligible, while ASU now allows transfer students to take advantage of the waiver.

The purpose of the Arizona Teachers Academy is, in part, to remedy the dire shortage of qualified teachers that Arizona has been experiencing for some time.

And according to Morse, even though the shortage is daunting, “any initiatives that bring attention to the field are going to be helpful.”

Morse added that the Arizona Teachers Academy addresses the issue of student debt among education professionals, which he said has been “lingering for years.”

“We know teaching is a lower-paying profession of the professions that require a degree, and I think that’s a deterrent,” he said. “And a lot of people want to be teachers, but they’re not necessarily willing to

go through four years of college to then make an income that makes it difficult to raise a family, to, you know, survive.”

Another upside to the program and its expansion in Yuma, according to Morse, is having people who grew up in Yuma stay in the area and teach.

“We have learned from our school partners in the Yuma County area that they want to be able to grow their own,” said Morse.

And Prust said that students at NAU-Yuma — a majority of which are the first in their families to attend college — can be an example for others by staying in town.

“They become models for their siblings and for others, and their family and the community,” said Prust.

NAU-Yuma will be holding information sessions on the Arizona Teachers Academy on Thursday and Friday, with two sessions both days. The first session, held on both days and dedicated to undergraduate degree programs and postbaccalaureate certification will be from 4:30 p.m. to 5:30 p.m. The second session, dedicated to master’s degree programs will be from 5:30 p.m. to 6:30 p.m. on both days.

For more info on ASU’s Arizona Teachers Academy visit bit.ly/319Jly7.