Eight prominent state universities and private schools unveiled plans Monday to launch programs aimed at helping motivated low-income community college students pursue undergraduate degrees at selective four-year schools.
Five private schools — Amherst, Mount Holyoke, Bucknell, Cornell and the University of Southern California — as well as three public universities — Michigan, North Carolina and California-Berkeley — have joined the initiative to admit a total of 1,100 transfer students from two-year community colleges over the next four years.
The Jack Kent Cooke Foundation, established to provide scholarships to students in need of financial assistance, will team with these schools to award grants totaling $6.78 million.
Princeton currently does not offer transfer admissions. Dean of Admission Janet Rapelye said in an email Wednesday that she was unavailable for comment.
A study conducted by the U.S. Department of Education found that more than one-third of high school students who went on to earn more than 10 credits at a two-year community college eventually enrolled in a four-year college.
Few of these students, however, transfer to selective colleges and universities. The eight schools pursuing this initiative hope to change those trends.
"While Cornell has always had a commitment to recruit and enroll low-income students from community colleges, this grant will allow us to enhance our efforts," Doris Davis, Cornell's associate provost, said in an email.
Forty-five percent of all undergraduates — some 6.5 million people — currently attend community colleges, institutions that Michael Kelly, Executive Director of Public Information at Mott Community College in Flint, Mich., called "gateways" to higher education.
"We are the bridge between high school and higher education," he said.
Kelly said he was not concerned over community college students' abilities to adjust academically to elite four-year colleges.
"Studies show, for example using the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor, that our students will graduate with a greater GPA than those who have been there for four years," he said.
Davis had similar confidence in the abilities of community college transfer students to adjust. "Students who attend community colleges can indeed compete successfully at competitive colleges and universities, Ivy League schools included," she said.
According to the Cooke Foundation, only 10 percent of students from the top 146 most selective colleges come from the lower half of the socioeconomic spectrum.
"Our country has a treasure of untapped talent at our community colleges, including many outstanding students from low-income backgrounds," Matthew Quinn, Executive Director of the Cooke Foundation, said in a press release.
President Tilghman has called the University's financial aid program the best in the country. Fifty-five percent of the Class of 2009 is currently receiving need-based aid, with an average scholarship of $28,100.
Of aid recipients, the average family income is $93,950. According to the latest census data, the real median household income for 2004 was $44,389.
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