College For Every Student (CFES) in Cornwall has been awarded $3.8 million by the GE Foundation for its college access programs in six GE operating communities nationwide. The GE Foundation donation signifies its long-term commitment to ensuring college access for low-income students that has put thousands of underserved youth on the path to higher education. The grant will support the continuation of CFES initiatives in schools in Harlem; Cincinnati; Erie, Pennsylvania; and Stamford, Connecticut; and establish the innovative ‘Scholars’ model in schools in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, and Lynn, Massachusetts.
In awarding the grant, GE Foundation officials cited CFES’s proven ability to partner schools in low-income communities with colleges to enhance the resources and opportunities available to disadvantaged students, most of whom are the first in their families to attend college. Over the last five years, 96% of the 6,400 graduating CFES seniors went on to college. This trend continues to play out in GE CFES schools, where last year 482 of the 489 senior CFES Scholars (99%) were college bound.
At the start of the 2011-12 academic year in September, the selected schools in the six GE operating communities will each identify at least 100 CFES Scholars, as targeted students are known. Funding from the GE Foundation will support activities in the three core practices that have proved effective in helping underserved students move toward college: Mentoring, Pathways to College, and Leadership through Service. Scholars will be given mentors, visit college campuses, and participate in leadership programs that help improve their schools and communities.
The GE Foundation grant also will fund the planning, training, and ongoing professional development and evaluation that enable a team of educators from each school and its partnering college to implement the program.
The program’s success will be measured by demonstrated gains among Scholars in key benchmarks including attendance, grades, educational aspirations, high school graduation, and ultimately college-going. Such benchmarks have been identified from information and data that CFES has collected from hundreds of schools nationwide over the past 21 years.
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College For Every Student is a nonprofit organization based in Cornwall, Vermont, that has created college-access partnerships with more than 500 schools across the country serving more than 100,000 students. It currently works with 150 schools in 22 states. For more information, please visit www.collegefes.org, or call 802-462-3170.
The GE Foundation, the philanthropic organization of the General Electric Company, works to solve some of the world’s most difficult problems. In coordination with its partners, it supports U.S. and international education, developing health globally, the environment, public policy, human rights, and disaster relief. In addition, the GE Foundation supports GE employee and retiree giving and involvement in GE communities around the world. In 2010, the entire GE family ‘ including businesses, employees, retirees, and the GE Foundation ‘ contributed more than $250 million in cash, products, and services to charitable organizations around the world. For more information, visit www.gefoundation.com.
Cornwall, VT, July 7,2011
GE Foundation awards Cornwall-based CFES $3.8 million
Submitted by tim
on