Earlier this year, the University of Richmond made a unique request to the state government.

The school said it has a scholarship that it can’t award.

The Jenӧ Balajthy Scholarship Fund was created by a bequest from Dr. Klara B. Yoe, in honor of her late father, and became available to award to students in the 1997-1998 academic year.

According to her will in 1994, the university could only award the scholarship to “a daughter or son of an ordained minister (or)...of a presbyter of the Hungarian Reformed Church whether situated in Europe, North America or Australia.” 

In the decade since, only one student has met the criteria and received the scholarship, despite several attempts to advertise the scholarship to eligible groups. The student, who was not named, attended from 2001 to 2003, with a total award amount of $60,003. 

Given the restrictions, the university has been unable to award the money since. The documents list the fund’s market value at $3,804,577 at the end of the school’s previous fiscal year in June 2025.

So the school requested that the state modify the restriction, stating that it was “impracticable for it to award the Scholarships” only to the listed groups. 

Under Virginia law, the state can modify or release a restriction outlined in a will for institutional funds – like scholarships – if the restriction “becomes unlawful, impracticable, impossible to achieve, or wasteful.”

Sunni Brown, the university’s Senior Director of Media Relations & Strategic Communications, said the petition’s goal was to “broaden the eligibility criteria while maintaining a preference consistent with the donor's original intent.”

The university petition also noted a second requirement that had become burdensome, which limits the scholarship to students who “maintain a (specific) minimum annual and cumulative grade point average by the grading system utilized by the University of Richmond at the time the will was signed.”

“This restriction would require the University to recalculate a student’s grade point average based on the grading system in place in 1994,” the petition reads. “Making such a recalculation is both impractical and unfair to current students.”

The university proposed a new criteria for the funds, which was accepted by the state.

While priority will be given to the groups the fund was initially intended for, the scholarship can now be awarded to any full-time undergraduate student with a “demonstrated financial need” and either a 3.0 high school or university GPA, depending on whether they were a first-year or continuing student. 

It also requested that previously unspent money be allowed to support other need-based scholarships that the university offers. The petition reasoned that the changes would still be “consistent with the charitable and educational purposes of the Fund.” 

Contact Intern Haidyn Brockelman at hbrockelman@richmonder.org.