Learning Communities Coalition Seeks to Enhance College Access in Six Communities

As children return to classrooms in six communities, they are benefiting from a unique effort to enhance their opportunities to pursue postsecondary education. USA Funds^® has joined a coalition of organizations that are focusing services on six pilot communities in a bid to improve access to postsecondary education for low-income students.

The targeted Learning Communities encompass the following areas:

• Sunnyside Unified School District, Tucson, Ariz.
• Washington Shores, Orlando, Fla.
• Washington Community School, Indianapolis.
• Okolona School District, Okolona, Miss.
• Benning Heights, Benning Terrace, Washington D.C.
• Wind River Reservation, Wyo.

USA Funds is contributing $200,000 in funding as well as staff and programmatic support to the Learning Communities Coalition, a comprehensive, community-based approach among 10 nationally recognized organizations. These organizations are partnering with local community leaders to significantly increase the number of youths in the selected communities who complete high school and successfully pursue postsecondary education.

“With this focused initiative, we seek to complement and support the educational goals of the local communities,” says Carl Dalstrom, USA Funds president and CEO. “Long term, we will encourage the building of Learning Communities throughout America by sharing with other communities and educational, business and philanthropic leaders what we learn.”

Coalition partners offer the communities a coordinated set of programs and other resources that address barriers keeping students from entering postsecondary education. The resources complement and strengthen local efforts to foster supportive cultures of learning and positive youth development.

Work already under way
Coalition members and representatives from the participating communities have met twice since the inception of the program this spring. During the initial planning workshop, pilot community representatives met coalition partners. Representatives also participated in group planning sessions, developed plans for their individual communities, presented those plans to the group, and received training on key early-awareness, preparation and motivational programs from Scholarship America and USA Funds.

By summer two-thirds of the Learning Communities had appointed individual program coordinators to oversee the initiatives in their communities, and all communities were working on establishing Dollars for Scholars boards in their areas. Dollars for Scholars, a national network of scholarship foundations, is a program of Scholarship America.

The Learning Communities also receive guidance from Bill Nelsen, Learning Communities consultant and former Scholarship America president.

This fall, many of the Learning Communities will begin implementing the Dollars for Scholars, ScholarShop and USA Funds Unlock the Future^® programs in their middle and high schools. A Scholarship America initiative, ScholarShop is a resource center that motivates and prepares young people to achieve their full potential. USA Funds Unlock the Future is an early-awareness program targeted to students and their families.

In addition, representatives from USA Funds and Scholarship America will conduct site visits to the pilot locations. USA Funds and Scholarship America will evaluate project outcomes and challenges following the year-long pilot period and periodically thereafter. Long-term plans call for seeking additional funding from national sources to implement programs from all the coalition members in all six pilot communities.

“This is a ground-breaking initiative,” says Kyle Malone, USA Funds scholarship and philanthropy manager. “It is exciting to be on the foundation of a movement that has the potential to change an entire community and its educational philosophy.”

Learning Communities Coalition members

• America’s Promise: The Alliance for Youth, a national organization that mobilizes communities, corporations and organizations in support of positive youth development.
• Communities in Schools, the nation’s largest stay-in-school network.
• Merimar Productions, established by Merrill Osmond and his family to support education and to assist with coalition fundraising and marketing.
• National Association for College Admission Counseling, a national organization of pre-college and postsecondary admissions counselors who share information and professional practices.
• National Mentoring Partnership, a national support organization for state and local mentoring organizations.
• Paws Inc., a company that offers creative, administrative and marketing support for the Garfield comic strip.
• The Sallie Mae Fund, a charitable organization sponsored by student-loan provider Sallie Mae.
• Scholarship America, the nation’s largest nonprofit scholarship and educational-support organization.
• USA Funds, the nation’s leading education-loan guarantor.
• U.S. Dream Academy, a nonprofit organization that focuses specifically on reaching at-risk children of prisoners.