DALLAS — Students from Ukraine can receive free tuition, fees and some living expenses to attend college at a Texas A&M University System school.
That’s a relief to students like Nadiia Viituk, a junior majoring in mechatronics at Texas A&M in College Station who spends much of her time worried about family and friends.
Her parents live in the western part of Ukraine, which she said is “safe for now.” But other family members who lived in Kharkiv have been forced to flee the country to escape bombings. Viituk’s parents helped her uncle’s family financially, but money is tight for everyone.
“I’m here, and they’re there,” Viituk, 21, said. “It’s quite hard to try to go to school while you worry about your family and Ukraine.”
Chancellor John Sharp authorized using funding from the Regents’ Grant program to help students such as Viituk in a letter addressed to the presidents of the system’s 11 institutions on Tuesday.
“Their homeland is under attack, their family members are either fleeing to safety or fighting to save their country’s sovereignty,” he wrote. “In many cases, our students from Ukraine will no longer have homes to return to, and their parents remain unable to work … or worse.”
The grant was created in 2018 to help students who had been struck by disaster after Hurricane Harvey devastated the state. The initiative meant to distribute up to $30 million over 10 years in help to students.
Sharp asked the presidents to identify eligible students who will all be able to apply. He told The News that the system has identified at least 15 of these students as of Wednesday.
The students who apply will be able to receive up to about $25,000 per year starting next semester, which can go toward tuition, fees or living expenses, Sharp said. Amounts will vary based on each student’s need.
The Texas A&M System will also open up university facilities to accommodate Ukrainian professors and students to continue their work at the institutions.
“We must strive to help those at our universities who have been affected by Putin’s abhorrent actions,” Sharp wrote.
Sharp recently asked the institutions to cut all ties with Russia, including research contracts or contact with universities in that country, and said the system has extended invitations to Ukrainian professors who might be unable to work on their research to do so in Texas.
“Ukrainian students are part of the fabric that make up the Texas A&M University System and Tarleton State University, and we want to do all we can to support them,” Tarleton State University President James Hurley said in a statement.
The financial help eases some of the stress, but reading about Russia launching a full-scale attack on Ukraine online and hearing about the devastation from her relatives directly has been frustrating, Viituk said. Some days she is unable to sleep or eat as she monitors reports to make sure missiles haven’t hit near her parents’ or friends’ homes.
“Childhood memories, where I spent my childhood, the places I’d love to go to, everything is getting destroyed,” she said.
_____
