The First Generation College Student Initiative at MCC

Additional Strategies:

Organizing an advisory committee of church and community leaders to enhance, support and assist outreach activities and provide college scholarships for the program.
Creating and/or coordinating presentations at county schools and churches, particularly in underserved population schools, during school fairs, family nights, church youth meetings, prayer meetings, Sunday School, etc.
Researching, reproducing, and coordinating efforts to use previously developed materials in the presentations to and recruitment of students for college classes.
Providing information to students and parents on preparing for college, financing college, selecting colleges and being successful in secondary and postsecondary education efforts. Specifically, the program will produce a college-focused insert called "The College Connection" that will be distributed to classrooms via the monthly Kids Copy in the Waco Tribune-Herald.
Providing bilingual presentations and reading materials where necessary and coordinating speakers that will be important role models for impressionable youth (successful athletes, student, government, and business leaders) in pursuing the dream of higher education.
Promoting publicity, editorials, public service announcements and school counselor information that will remind, educate, promote and support other individuals and organizations in their efforts to increase the numbers of minority youth going to and successfully completing college programs.
Finding and coordinating efforts of other local, state and national scholarship and grants programs so that area youth have every opportunity to be aware of scholarship dollars available for two-and four-year postsecondary education.

Program Background:

The First Generation initiative is the result of the following indicators:

Census data indicates that the poverty rate for Waco is 38%, which is significantly higher than the statewide rate of 18%. In addition to a high poverty rate, our county has a low educational attainment rate with only 19% of the population age 25 and older having an associate's degree or higher, compared to the statewide rate of 23%.
Approximately one-third of MCC students are at or below poverty level and more than half are first generation. Over 60% of African-American students and over 66% of Hispanic students are first generation.
Many first generation students enrolling at MCC have had no assistance in preparing for the college experience. Counselors at MCC indicate that first generation students tend to have self-esteem issues, limited family support, and greater fear of failure than other students.
College outreach efforts to high-school age students are increasingly ineffective because by that age many have already decided they aren't college material or have dropped out of school entirely. Studies indicate that a college-bound attitude must be established as early as the primary grades.

Funding:

Primary funding for the first two years of the program is covered by a $100,000 grant from the Bernard and Audre Rapoport Foundation, comprising:

$50,000 scholarship grant: $25,000 each year for two years. Each year for the initial two years of the program, this money will fund up to six, two-year scholarships for MCC first-generation college students. To ensure continued eligibility, the students must remain in school full time and maintain at least a 3.0 GPA.
$50,000 position grant: $25,000 each year for the initial two years to fund a portion of a First Generation Outreach Coordinator position at MCC. This position will work in the MCC Admissions and Recruitment Department under the direction of Dr. Vivian Jefferson.

Supplemental funding provided by a $62,139 grant from TG Public Benefit Grant Program will support operational costs for the program and 12 additional student scholarships for 2006-2007.

Partners:

McLennan County Youth Collaboration. Doug McDurham, Director. www.mcycwaco.org
Parents for Public Schools. Kris Olson. Executive Director. www.parents4publicschools.com/Waco
Through a tightly coordinated effort with MCC, these organizations have committed to support the students in the program.
The MCC Foundation and Resource Development Office. Harry Harelik, Executive Director of MCC Foundation and Nancy Neill, Director of Resource Development.
These offices have identified and will approach up to 30 other philanthropic foundations that support this type of initiative and could provide matching grants to sustain the project beyond the initial two years.