Support Fuels Minority Student Success
Editor’s Note: The following is a feature from the USA Funds® 2008 annual report. USA Funds Education Access Report is highlighting those featured in the annual report to show the key roles that USA Funds plays in helping families prepare and pay for, and complete postsecondary education. To access the full report online, you’ll need Adobe Reader.
USA Funds’ direct contributions and support for fund-raising activities helped the United Negro College Fund garner nearly $1 million in support of higher education for African-American students in 2008.
Over the past seven years, USA Funds has provided a total of nearly $1.5 million in grants toward UNCF initiatives, including $700,000 for scholarships. Edgar Perdue Jr. is one of 235 recipients of need-based UNCF scholarships sponsored by USA Funds during that period.
Perdue, 24, says summing up the importance of his UNCF scholarship is simple. “For UNCF and USA Funds to offer scholarships to students is just a blessing,” he says.
In spring 2008 Perdue graduated from Rust College, where he studied business administration and accounting. Located in Holly Springs, Miss., Rust College is one of the nation’s federally designated Historically Black Colleges and Universities.
When the Indianapolis native received his degree, he did so with a minimum amount of student loan debt, thanks to scholarships including a $3,000 renewable award from UNCF funded by contributions from USA Funds.
“Every year thousands and thousands of students are in my predicament,” Perdue says. “Without USA Funds and UNCF, they could be faced with a huge amount of debt, which sometimes can seem to feel as if there’s an uncomfortable weight on your chest. So I can’t say enough about UNCF and USA Funds.”
Perdue took out one loan for college, during his freshman year. USA Funds guaranteed that loan.
Starting with his sophomore year at Rust College, Perdue also received music scholarships. He was a member of the school’s a capella choir, eventually becoming its president. He also played alto saxophone in the marching band.
But it was in accounting that Perdue always planned to start making his mark in the world. His mother and father, who both earned college degrees as adults, encouraged him to pursue higher education.
Now back in Indianapolis and newly married, he works for a local accounting firm that has supported UNCF activities for a number of years, donating the accounting work required for UNCF’s regional fund-raising event conducted each fall. Perdue’s participation in his employer’s service to UNCF allows him to give back to the organization whose scholarships are helping him succeed. He’s working toward becoming a certified public accountant and also has plans that go beyond achieving that milestone.
“It doesn’t stop here for me,” says Perdue. “I have big dreams and aspirations, like owning my own firm.”
Along with scholarships, USA Funds supports a number of endeavors to help UNCF advance the higher education dreams of African-American students. USA Funds has provided funding for the formation of UNCF advisory councils in Indiana, where USA Funds is based. Pat Roe, USA Funds special assistant to the president, chairs the Indianapolis council.
In fiscal 2008 USA Funds presented the first of three planned $100,000 grants to promote HBCU enrollment growth through UNCF’s Institute for Capacity Building. In the first year of a pilot program, the four participating schools — Clark Atlanta University in Atlanta; Oakwood University in Huntsville, Ala.; Texas College in Tyler, Texas; and Voorhees College in Denmark, S.C.— showed a 10-percent gain in enrollment overall.
“USA Funds clearly is the example of a true community partner,” says Andrea Neely, UNCF Indiana area development director. “USA Funds’ support means a lot not only to our organization but to the students who have come to depend on the support that USA Funds provides.”
UNCF twice has honored Carl Dalstrom, USA Funds president and CEO, with its Corporate Shining Star Award for commitment to student success. He has chaired the Indianapolis regional UNCF scholarship fund-raiser for the past five years.
USA Funds supports other minority-focused national scholarship organizations as well, awarding $400,000 overall to five such groups in 2008. Along with UNCF, USA Funds supported the American Indian College Fund, the Hispanic Scholarship Fund, the Thurgood Marshall College Fund, and the Asian and Pacific Islander American Scholarship Fund.
USA Funds’ overall support for fund-raising events for these organizations and the U.S. Dream Academy helped raise an additional $5.1 million to support scholarships and other education access programs.
The USA Funds Access to Education Scholarships® program awarded nearly $8 million in 2008 to help more than 5,300 low- to moderate-income students. Students who are members of ethnic minority groups receive special consideration for the scholarships.
James Alston, UNCF senior vice president of northern field operations, says USA Funds’ broad support for minority students has implications beyond the classroom.
“Education is the key to life,” Alston says. “All of us have a stake in opening that door of educational opportunity a little bit wider so that an increased number of young people, regardless of ethnicity, can be prepared to take their rightful place in society.”
For Perdue, that open door of educational opportunity is helping him to realize his professional dreams as well as his aspirations of giving back to the community. “I
wouldn’t be where I am now without USA Funds and UNCF,” he says.