Funding promotes preparation for, access to and success in higher education
USA Funds provides $16.3 million in support of higher education
USA Funds®, the nation’s leading education-loan guarantor, has announced that it provided a total of $16.3 million to 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.
USA Funds Scholarship Programs. Through USA Funds Access to Education Scholarships®, a national scholarship program, USA Funds awarded more than $8.3 million to help more than 5,600 low- to moderate-income students pay college expenses for the 2007-2008 academic year. USA Funds awarded an additional $315,000 to 210 graduating high-school seniors in 11 states and the District of Columbia through its USA Funds Scholars program.
Minority-Focused Scholarship Organizations. USA Funds awarded a total of $355,000 to the scholarship funds of the American Indian College Fund, Asian and Pacific Islander American Scholarship Fund, Hispanic Scholarship Fund, Thurgood Marshall Fund and the United Negro College Fund, and provided additional financial and staff 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 and distributed through major newspapers or directly to high schools USA Funds Countdown to College™ supplements, featuring financial-aid and college-admissions advice.
Early Awareness. During the year more than 170 USA Funds Unlock the Future® kits were distributed to schools, community agencies and faith-based organizations to advise middle-school students and their parents of the benefits of higher education and to encourage them to make training or education after high school a part of their future plans. USA Funds also introduced USA Funds Consejos, a new early awareness program designed to inform Latino students and their families about the value of a postsecondary education.
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.
Learning Communities Initiative. In partnership with Scholarship America, USA Funds spearheads an initiative to improve postsecondary-education access for low-income students in six communities in Arizona, Florida, Indiana, Mississippi, Wyoming and Washington, D.C.
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 designated 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.
“Consistent with USA Funds’ nonprofit mission to enhance higher-education preparedness, access and success, we are pleased to partner with governmental agencies and other nonprofits to increase higher-education opportunities,” said Henry L. Fernandez, USA Funds executive director, access and outreach. “Our goal is to ensure that every deserving student has the opportunity to benefit from postsecondary education.”