CU Boulder students can now earn scholarships for tuition and fees by taking sustainable actions on campus with PIPs for School, a program offered by the PIPs Rewards app.
PIPs Rewards is a mobile app that rewards users for verifiable behaviors that benefit personal wellness, the environment, and community good. PIPs users earn ‘Positive Impact Points’ for actions like biking, recycling, and volunteering that are redeemed for prizes that include gift cards and free passes.
Starting in Spring 2019, students at CU Boulder can also convert their PIPs into a PIPs for School scholarship toward next semester’s school expenses.
“PIPs for School offers students an entirely new way to pay part of their tuition and fees, which we hope provides another tool to help them achieve their academic goals,” says Ofelia Morales, director of the CU Boulder Office of Financial Aid who worked with PIPs Rewards to create the first University PIPs for School program.
Students using the app have the opportunity to redeem up to 50,000 PIPs, the equivalent of $500 in scholarships toward tuition and fees. If they redeem 10,000 or more PIPs for School, they may be eligible for matching funds through the CU PIPs Student Education Fund, dependent on fund availability. In total, a CU Boulder student could earn up to $1,000 in scholarship funds each school year by biking, riding the bus, recycling, refilling reusable water bottles, and other sustainability, wellness, and volunteering activities across campus.
“This is a new way for students to convert their routine sustainability actions into $500 cash against their fees and tuition,” says Dave Newport, director of the CU Environmental Center, which oversees administration of the CU PIPs Rewards app on campus.
The PIPs Rewards App was piloted at CU Boulder beginning in Fall 2017 and is funded on campus by the Office of the Chancellor. PIPs Rewards provides CU Boulder students, staff, and faculty campus-specific earn and redeem opportunities in addition to the earn and redeem opportunities available to all PIPs Rewards users.
For more information on program specifics, see the PIPs for School Scholarships web page on CU Boulder’s Scholarship website.