“Not all Promise grant recipients will receive money in the spring,” MSU Provost Kim Wilcox said.

MSU revealed the plan at the Board of Trustees meeting Friday and announced plans to ease tuition costs next semester.

MSU received $7.9 million in federal stimulus funds from the state and will use $6 million to address student needs resulting from the state’s failure to fund the Promise Scholarship, said Dave Byelich, the director of MSU’s Office of Planning and Budgets.

For the fall, the more than 8,000 MSU students who expected Michigan Promise Scholarship funding will receive the full payment of $500 for the semester, said Rick Shipman, director of the MSU Office of Financial Aid.

Students who display “exceptional need” also will receive $500 for the spring semester, but those with lesser need will receive less, he said.

Students who qualify for the Pell Grant will be considered to have “exceptional need,” said Val Meyers, associate director of the MSU Office of Financial Aid. Officials haven’t established how many students that includes.

“For the highest need students we are proposing a full $1,000 award from the stimulus money,” Byelich said. “Those other students who are promise recipients would receive $500 that would make them whole for the fall semester.”

Advertising and retail sophomore Emily Doyle said she does not expect to qualify for the full scholarship amount in the spring and will have to find another way to make up for the lost money.

“You definitely bank on it,” she said. “(If the funds are not covered) it’s not worth the process you took taking the (Michigan Merit Examination), it’s not worth the effort you put in. I’ll find a different way to get it.”

MSU President Lou Anna K. Simon said after the spring semester, it is unlikely MSU will have any stimulus funds left to continue replacing students’ lost scholarship money.

“This is a one time benefit because the money is one time,” she said.

MSU will use the additional $1.9 million in stimulus funds to provide a $5 per credit hour refund for all resident undergraduate students next semester, Byelich said. For a student taking the minimum full-time course load of 12 credit hours, the refund would amount to $60.

Psychology and human resources senior Ryan McNamara said the $5 per credit hour does not seem like a huge help.

“I guess it’s a start, but it’s not really that much,” he said.

The MSU Board of Trustees created a plan this past spring to deal with the possible loss of the scholarship, Byelich said.