Group Helps Poor Students Enroll in Top Colleges

November 15, 2007

Group Helps Poor Students Enroll in Top Colleges

A nonprofit group in Palo Alto, Calif., has successfully placed high-achieving students whose families have low incomes with some of the nation’s most-prestigious colleges, reports The Wall Street Journal.

The charity, QuestBridge, was created in 2003 by Michael McCullough, an emergency-room doctor, and is run by Tim Brady, who was an employee in the early days of Yahoo. In four years, the organization has matched 2,300 students with very selective colleges, such as Yale, Stanford, and Princeton.

Each college pays QuestBridge $40,000 to $70,000 in annual recruiting fees and offers scholarships to students in exchange for helping to diversify their campuses. Despite these fees, QuestBridge says this meets only half of its $1.6-million annual budget. The rest comes from grant makers, such as the Goldman Sachs Foundation and the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation.

At a time when some states are barring racial preferences in college admissions and only 3 percent of students at 146 of the nation’s most-selective colleges come from households in the bottom quartile of income, QuestBridge is becoming more popular. The group plans to add 10 more college “partners” and create a one-week “boot camp” on what to expect at an Ivy League institution.

Says Mr. McCullough, “We hope that in 10 years we’ll have added a new generation of talented and thoughtful minds to American leadership, drawn from the lowest economic spectrum.”

Comments

I am not convinced that this is the best type of program to expand college access for needy students. Although it’s mission to help low-income students is worthy and important, this program only targets students who are already college-bound. It does little to help “at risk” low-income students get onto the college track. College prep for under-represented students is the real imperative in improving access to higher education.

An alternative approach would be to financially prepare low-income students early (in elementary school) and help them get on the college track by breaking down the financial barriers to college. Students from all across the country who are associated with the Roosevelt Institution (www.rooseveltinstitution.org) are coming up with innovative and progressive ideas on how to improve the socioeconomic diversity of college – definitely worth checking out.

— Nick Hillman Nov 28, 10:02 AM #

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