Dive Temporary:
- The U.S. Division of Schooling will distribute $5 million in grants to high schools that enroll college students from underserved communities to assist enhance their retention and completion charges.
- Eligible faculties, which embrace traditionally Black and minority-serving establishments, “are particularly invited” to make use of the cash to help college students near graduating and to reengage those that could have dropped out quickly due to the coronavirus pandemic, the Schooling Division mentioned Thursday.
- Grantees can be eligible for as much as $1 million in funding. The division additionally mentioned it’s prioritizing group faculties the place enrollment declines through the well being disaster have been probably the most extreme.
Dive Perception:
The $5 million is cash Congress allotted to the division, Schooling Secretary Miguel Cardona mentioned throughout an company occasion Thursday that highlighted efforts to enhance inclusivity in increased schooling.
“Years of underinvestment, state price range cuts, and lagging federal help for Pell Grants have shifted prices to college students and left you chronically underfunded,” Cardona mentioned, referencing HBCUs, Hispanic-serving establishments and others that serve marginalized populations.
“Too usually, our best-resourced faculties are chasing rankings that imply little on measures that really depend: school completion, financial mobility, narrowing gaps in entry to alternative,” he mentioned.
Schools that wish to pursue the brand new grant funding have two months to use, and may element their work to advertise scholar retention and completion and “current a high-quality analysis plan,” the division mentioned.
The company mentioned it has requested $110 million from Congress to fund extra retention and completion grants.
Cardona additionally introduced on the occasion that the Schooling Division will prolong for 3 extra years an initiative often known as Undertaking Success, which makes an attempt to bolster institutional efficiency and scholar outcomes at minority-serving establishments. The challenge was as a consequence of sundown subsequent month. It labored to determine threat elements affecting retention and commencement charges.