Students Can Receive Scholarships After Taking Free Classes

February 18, 2012 | MariaNews.com 

Free Think U at CPAC: Students Can Receive Scholarships After Taking Free Classes

(By Julianne)

WASHINGTON, D.C. – Every year at CPAC, hundreds of conservative organizations flood the “Exhibit Hall” and work to promote their missions, goals, and conservative viewpoints. Student campaign activists tried selling me a “Rick Santorum” sweater vest, and soon after, I was offered a book, “Back on the Road to Serfdom,” by the Intercollegiate Studies Institute. It can get a bit overwhelming to be handed so many conservative materials in one place, but this year, I discovered one group in particular that stuck out in walking throughout the hall decorated with ideas like, “Freedom,” “Sick of Political Correctness?” and “Free Thinking.”

The name of the group with this background is “Free Think U.” Free Think U is a student organization created just last year that seeks to promote conservative ideas amongst students by offering them scholarships for completing classes like “The American Mind,” “Socratic Method,” and “Americanism 101: Making the Case for American Exceptionalism.”

The online courses look very much like a typical class for an online school. Varying in length from 2 to 4 hours, upon completion, a student is awarded points in his or her account. At the end of the year, every student is guaranteed a scholarship based on the number of points accumulated in his or her account.

One cool feature is that grandparents and relatives can actually give a scholarship to students beforehand through the website. To “unlock” the scholarship, a student will be required to take one of the courses like “Free Market Economics.” Grandparents and relatives are definitely doing a service to their loved ones by giving a scholarship this way. Students will be sure to have ready responses to liberal viewpoints at their respective colleges after taking one of these great courses.

I had the chance to briefly speak with Becca, from Groves City College in California, who is a student organizer for Free Think U. “Free Think U is a scholarship program, our goal is to be the biggest scholarship program by the end of the year. We want to hit the million mark.”

This organization offers a ray of hope in the world of liberal academia where a student often never hears about American Exceptionalism. Conservative students are often marginalized or made to feel guilty for appreciating American values in colleges across the country. This organization has sought to directly confront that problem by offering students an educational alternative in a way that enables them to pay off steep debt too.

“Basically, we offer classes that give a contra-PC perspective. It’s not what you see in the media, hear in the media, or learn in your typical public school. It offers the other perspective, because we want students to think on their own.”

Meeting Becca showed me that there is a growing movement amongst young conservatives to claim back colleges across America. Free Think U is surely leading the way in educating young conservatives and winning back a leftist college system.

Julianne Nowicki graduated from the University of Michigan in 2010, she is currently a second year student at Ave Maria School of Law and Associate Editor of the Ave Maria School of Law Review.

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