Recruiting Future Scholars: Rutgers University Pledges
Hope, Opportunity, and Free Tuition

by Megan Schramm-Possinger - DiversityInc Magazine (May/June 2009)

In response to New Jersey's growing High School drop out rates in low income and urban communities, Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey, launched an aggressive initiative in October 2008: The Rutgers Future Scholars Program. It is designed to give promising, motivated 7th graders educational opportunities.

>>> read the whole article in DiversityInc. Magazine

June 15, 2009

Rutgers helps keep future scholars on track

by Rita Giordano - Inquirer Staff Writer

A group of Camden eighth graders took a tour of Cooper University Hospital last week and caught a glimpse of what their futures could hold.

They weren't just any eighth graders. All were members of the inaugural class of Rutgers Future Scholars, a program launched by the university a year ago to help more youngsters from low-income communities graduate from college.

>>> read the full article in The Philadelphia Inquirer

Future Scholars attend U. basketball game

by Aviva Kushner - The Daily Targum

Future Scholars begin long road to college educations

James Boswell’s longtime interest – well, longtime for a 13-year-old – in forensic science was confirmed this summer when he spent a week on the Rutgers–Camden campus in some of the first activities of the Rutgers Future Scholars Program.Bo swell, an eighth-grader at Cooper’s Poynt Professional Development School in Camden, learned about how to reconstruct the details of a car accident by analyzing paint scrapes and crumpled metal. He also played the role of defense attorney in a grisly hypothetical case of cannibalism.“It was fun, but hard at the same time,” James said. “It was enjoyable, and it made you think.”The work that week was so taxing that James could only relate a few details to his mother, Joanna Henriquez, when he got home. “He would talk about his day for about an hour, and then he would be knocked out,” Henriquez said. “It’s a different style of learning than what they teach in the public schools.”The Future Scholars Program is Rutgers’ way of taking responsibility for strengthening the educational pipeline in New Jersey – ensuring that as many students as possible gain skills and nurture talents necessary to make the transition from high school to college, and then to meet the challenges of college successfully.

>>> read the full article in Rutgers FOCUS

August 6, 2008

Too few low-income college students?

Amherst, Mass. - The road to a college education in America is paved with good grades and hard work. But it also takes money and knowing how to navigate a complex admissions route – two factors that have contributed to poor students' underrepresentation on many campuses.

About 50 percent of low-income students enroll in college right after high school, compared with 80 percent of high-income students, according to the National Center for Education Statistics. That's a gap of 30 percentage points, a gap that over the past 30 years has fluctuated between 22 and 49 points.

For low-income students with high achievement levels, the college attendance rate is higher – about 77 percent – but that's about the same rate as high-income students with much lower achievement scores, according the College Board, a nonprofit association in New York that tracks and promotes college attendance.

As competition intensifies in the global marketplace – and as the numbers of people in developing countries who complete college is quickly increasing – pressure is mounting in the US to remove barriers to higher education and develop the pool of talent represented by low-income students.

"Higher education used to be one of the ways to get to the American middle class.... [Now] it's the only way," because of the loss of low-skill, high-wage jobs, says Thomas Mortenson, an Iowa-based senior scholar with the Pell Institute for the Study of Opportunity in Higher Education in Washington. "That places a very different set of responsibilities on higher education. If in fact they're going to play a socially constructive, economically constructive ... role, they have to diversify their enrollments."

He and other advocates for low-income students take many of the top-ranked public and private universities to task for the small percentages of low-income students they enroll. At the University of Virginia, for instance, about 7 percent of students in 2006 received federal Pell Grants, a common proxy that researchers use for low-income status. At Yale, it was about 8 percent.

By comparison, some top-ranked schools such as the University of California, Berkeley, and Smith College in Northampton, Mass., have at least a quarter of their student bodies receiving Pell Grants. (See www.economicdiversity.org, run by the Project on Student Debt.)

Amherst College, a top-ranked college in central Massachusetts, is one example of a school that welcomes pressure to do better. With an endowment valued at nearly $1.7 billion, "it's morally incumbent upon us to do everything in our power to make [this kind of] education possible for as broad a range as we can," says Amherst dean of admissions Tom Parker.

About 12 percent of students at Amherst received Pell Grants in 2006, and about 20 percent overall are low-income, if the count includes those who are similarly eligible for grants through other channels, Mr. Parker says.

Amherst makes sure the financial-aid packages it offers cover students' need through government and Amherst grants and campus jobs. The college used to include loans in its aid packages, but nearly a decade ago, it stopped asking students to take out loans if their families earned under $60,000; it gave them more grants instead. Last year, it expanded the no-loan policy to everyone on financial aid, meaning many middle-class students can also graduate debt-free.

Dozens of colleges made similar announcements in the past year. In part, these moves are seen as a response to pressures from some members of Congress who want wealthy colleges to use more of their endowment funds to improve affordability. Congress recently expanded maximum Pell Grant amounts.

For Amherst and other colleges that value diversity as an important contributor to all students' education, socioeconomic diversity is gaining more attention. As restrictions have cropped up on traditional affirmative-action categories such as race, attention to low-income students is sometimes seen as a way to help keep up representation of minorities.

But at private schools like Amherst, that's not the motivation, Parker says. Indeed, the Pell Grant recipients there are about equally African-American, white, Hispanic, and Asian-American.

Some parents wonder if their child might be paying more to subsidize low-income students, Parker says, but that's not the case, because funding for financial aid primarily comes from colleges' endowments. Many donors, in fact, dedicate their endowment gifts to financial aid. Even students who pay the full price of tuition, fees, and room and board – about $47,000 – aren't paying the full amount it costs for the college to house and educate each student, which adds up to nearly $80,000.

But financial aid alone isn't enough to boost low-income enrollments, many colleges have found. Amherst has hired more admissions staff to do outreach, and it pays for several hundred low-income students a year to visit campus. It also works with nonprofit groups such as QuestBridge, which identifies talented applicants from low-income backgrounds.

Current Amherst students from low-income backgrounds can earn their work-study money by mentoring high school counterparts through the college-application and financial-aid process, whether or not they want to apply to Amherst.

Ashley Armato worked as a mentor as a student at Amherst, where she recently graduated and started a one-year job in the admissions office. As the daughter of a firefighter and a maid, neither of whom went to college, she understood the challenges facing those she mentored. Students often started off assuming they could afford only community colleges, but she was able to explain financial aid and help them expand their options. She also reassured a lot of parents, sometimes speaking with them in Spanish.

Some four-year colleges and universities are aiming even younger in the pipeline to help ensure students have enough preparation to be strong applicants.

Rutgers University, the flagship public institution in New Jersey, recently created the Future Scholars Program, in which up to 200 local eighth-graders will participate in enrichment activities all the way through high school. The students meet income requirements and will be the first generation in their family to attend college, and they are promised full scholarships for tuition and fees if they are accepted into Rutgers. The university has launched a fundraising campaign and expects the costs to be covered through private donations and existing state and federal programs.

"I thought a lot about college – every day, every day," says Feliciano Cintron of Camden, N.J., who was selected for the program this summer. "As soon as this opportunity came … I just took it and said, 'I can't let go of this.' "

From: The Christian Science Monitor, 8/06/08 (italics added)

June 26, 2008

The Future Starts NOW:
Rutgers Welcomes Future Scholars

PISCATAWAY -- On June 26, more than 130 of the nearly 200 inaugural Rutgers Future Scholars attended a welcome session at the Allison Road Classroom Building on Rutgers’ Busch Campus. At the Math and Science Learning Center, the eighth graders got a feel for the kinds of hands-on learning they will engage in over the next several years. The Future Scholars met one another for the first time and planted the seeds for educational and personal enrichment that will shape them as they grow into knowledge seekers who will, in turn, shape the world around them.

>>> watch a video clip from the welcome session

June 19, 2008

Fifty Camden Teens Prepare to Enter Rutgers Future Scholars Program

CAMDEN -- Starting this summer, 50 rising eighth-grade students in the Camden public school system will begin to prepare for college through a comprehensive Rutgers program that will provide the teens with academic and social development support throughout their secondary school careers and tuition support at Rutgers upon graduation from high school.

The Rutgers Future Scholars program launches this summer as a multipronged initiative to strengthen Rutgers’ commitment to diversity and to encourage enrollment by talented students in underrepresented populations from the university’s host communities. Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey, has regional campuses in Camden, New Brunswick/Piscataway, and Newark.

Rutgers President Richard L. McCormick initiated the program in an effort to reach minority and low-income students who “might otherwise never consider college within their grasp.”

In the City of Camden, the inaugural Rutgers Future Scholars class will spend an intensive weeklong introduction to college life during July 7-11, when the Camden teens will meet current Rutgers-Camden students who graduated from Camden schools; engage in programs related to the fine arts on the Rutgers-Camden campus; and attend courses in such areas as science and law.

The students also will learn about career opportunities through sessions at the Rutgers-Camden Career Center and will engage in athletics activities on the Rutgers-Camden campus.

“Our goal during this week is to introduce these students to the many opportunities that college has to offer,” explains Nyeema Watson, associate director of the Rutgers-Camden Center for Children and Childhood Studies and director of the Rutgers Future Scholars program in Camden.

During subsequent summers, the current Rutgers Future Scholars will participate in four-to-six-week residential summer programs designed to promote academic skills in mathematics, language arts, and the sciences.

Watson notes that the Camden teens will be mentored by Rutgers students throughout the academic year, and will be invited to the Rutgers-Camden campus regularly to participate in cultural, academic, and athletic collegiate activities, including a Rutgers class. Rutgers Future Scholars will be offered PSAT and SAT training.

“This program will help Camden teens to prepare for college,” says Watson. “Perhaps more importantly, we intend to help keep these students in high school so that they graduate.”

The project has special significance for Watson, a 1995 graduate of Woodrow Wilson High School in Camden. “It was difficult for me to get ready for college,” she recalls. “Camden’s teachers are all deeply dedicated to their students. This Rutgers program offers that extra support that will help to change the lives of Camden’s kids.

“The most important aspect of the program will be the relationship between the students, their families, the school district, and Rutgers, with all parties working together to support these students in their academic and social development,” continues Watson, who was appointed by New Jersey Gov. Jon S. Corzine to serve on the Camden City Board of Education.

“Rutgers-Camden is proud to welcome the first Camden class of the Rutgers Future Scholars program,” says Rutgers-Camden Interim Chancellor Margaret Marsh. “This exciting pilot program is just one example of our dedication to extending wide and open access to the life-changing opportunities that a Rutgers degree offers.

“While this is an ambitious program, it simply cannot accept every Camden child or teen. Rutgers will continue to work with the Camden school district to offer support on how to help all students build their academic skills and stay engaged and committed to the education process while in middle and high school,” continues Marsh.

The Rutgers Future Scholars program will select a new cohort of students annually until each host city has a total of 200. Students are selected jointly by school districts and Rutgers. Participating students must demonstrate financial need and academic potential, and come from underrepresented family backgrounds.

The families of Rutgers Future Scholars will be asked to help their students to maintain a 90-percent attendance rate a grade-point average of 2.5 or better (out of 4.0).

Camden families interested in learning more about the Rutgers Future Scholars program are encouraged to contact Nyeema Watson at (856) 225-6738.