The University received a $623,000 grant yesterday from the Jack Kent Cooke Foundation to train recent college graduates to work as "college guides" in Virginia communities.
The initiative is part of a larger grant package the Jack Kent Cooke Foundation announced yesterday -- $966,613 to set up and bolster college access programs across Virginia.
"These grants will give more of Virginia's students, particularly highly capable students with financial need, the chance to fulfill their dreams of going to college," Foundation Executive Director Matthew J. Quinn said in a press release. "We also believe that U.Va. can establish a national model that shows how institutions of higher education and local communities can work together to help more qualified students earn postsecondary degrees."
The University will recruit and train college guides from this year's graduating class. After an eight-week training program, the 20 selected students will work at the fledgling college access programs to help maneuver students through application and financial aid processes and to encourage high school students to go on to college.
Nicole Hurd, assistant dean and the director of the University's Center for Undergraduate Excellence, said the University will begin actively recruiting fourth years in January. Prospective college guides will interview both with University faculty and staff and with staff from public high schools.
"It's very much an organic, vibrant relationship between the University and the communities," Hurd said. "It matches up perfectly with our vision as a public institution that we should be doing outreach to every person in the Commonwealth."
The Foundation considered proposals from Virginia school districts and yesterday awarded about $90,000 each to organizations in three counties charged with establishing college access programs.
Among the recipients is the new Fairfax Scholarship Fund, which will use its funding to send part-time "financial aid champions" into the county's seven highest-poverty high schools.
"Fairfax has a reputation of being a wealthy county, but the fact is that 33,000 students are on free and reduced price meals," said the fund's Executive Director Christian N. Braunlich.
Braunlich said Fairfax County had hoped to establish a scholarship fund for several years but could not obtain funding to start a program.
"The Jack Kent Cooke Foundation has recognized a very important need," Braunlich said. "I think it's going to have a tremendous impact on Fairfax County."
The Foundation also awarded grants to support existing scholarship and college access programs, including in Charlottesville and Albemarle.
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