USA Funds provides $16.6 million in support of higher education

Funding promotes preparation for, access to and success in higher education

USA Funds provides $16.6 million in support of higher education

INDIANAPOLIS — USA Funds^®, the nation’s leading education-loan guarantor, has announced that it provided a total of $16.6 million to support programs that helped Americans pursue higher education during the fiscal year ending Sept. 30. USA Funds supported a variety of scholarship and outreach programs designed to help students and families prepare for, pay for and succeed in higher education.

Scholarships. Through its national scholarship program, USA Funds disbursed nearly $8.2 million to help nearly 5,500 low- to moderate-income students pay college expenses for the 2006-2007 academic year. USA Funds awarded an additional $412,500 to 275 graduating high-school seniors in 11 states and the District of Columbia through its USA Funds Scholars program. USA Funds also awarded $100,000 each to the scholarship funds of the American Indian College Fund, the Hispanic Scholarship Fund and the United Negro College Fund, and provided additional support to those organizations’ fund-raising events.

College Goal Sunday. USA Funds is a major funder of College Goal Sunday events in Arizona, Delaware, the District of Columbia, Florida, Hawaii, Indiana, Kansas, Maryland, Nevada and Wyoming. College Goal Sunday offers students and parents free assistance in completing the Free Application for Federal Student Aid. In conjunction with College Goal Sunday, USA Funds published USA Funds Countdown to College supplements, featuring financial-aid and college-admissions advice, in major daily newspapers in eight states.

Early Awareness. USA Funds updated and upgraded its early awareness program for middle-school students and their parents. During the year more than 100 USA Funds Unlock the Future^® kits were distributed to schools, community agencies and faith-based organizations to advise students and parents of the benefits of higher education and to encourage them to make training or education after high school part of their plans.

ScholarShop and Dollars for Scholars. USA Funds supplied funding to expand the Dollars for Scholars network of community-based scholarship foundations and to increase the number of ScholarShop programs, which provide information to motivate and prepare young people for higher education by helping them explore career and postsecondary-education options. Both are programs of Scholarship America, the nation’s largest nonprofit, private-sector scholarship and educational-support organization.

State Programs. USA Funds focuses much of its support on initiatives that enhance higher-education access in the eight states — Arizona, Hawaii, Indiana, Kansas, Maryland, Mississippi, Nevada and Wyoming — that it serves as designed guarantor under the Federal Family Education Loan Program. These programs included college-planning publications, hotlines and Web sites; college tours; college fairs; best-practices conferences; admissions-test preparation; mentoring programs; student enrollment and retention projects; as well as mobile classrooms that help hospitalized students keep up with their studies.

“USA Funds works in partnership with governmental agencies and other nonprofits as a catalyst for expanded higher-education opportunities,” said Carl C. Dalstrom, USA Funds president and CEO. “Our goal is to ensure that every deserving student has the opportunity to benefit from postsecondary education.”