College Admission Help

College Scholarship offers a lot
Low-income middle school students can get up to $30,000 for college tuition, books and fees
By Adriana Janovich
Yakima Herald-Republic
YAKIMA, Wash. — Osvaldo Cardenas has a few goals for high school.
Save some money. Stick with basketball and the Future Business Leaders of America. Graduate with a decent grade point average. ("I'm shooting for a 2.5 or higher," he says.) And, "Stay out of trouble."
The last two are key. There's money on the line. As much as $30,000.
"You don't want to lose out on that," Cardenas says.
The 15-year-old Davis High School freshman was among the first Washington state middle and junior high school students to sign up for the new College Bound Scholarship last year.
This year, hundreds of students in the Yakima Valley might be missing out on the scholarship money because they haven't applied for it.
The deadline is looming. This year's applications for the state-funded scholarship are due June 30.
It's crunch time, says Janie Morales-Castro, the College Bound Scholarship counselor for Educational Service District 105, which includes school districts from Easton to Wahluke and Bickleton, as well as those in the Yakima Valley.
So far, approximately 40 percent of eligible students throughout the ESD have signed up -- about 3,250 of 8,123 students.
"We would like to reach 100 percent," Morales-Castro says.
The scholarship covers the cost of tuition, books and fees -- up to $30,000 -- at two- and four-year public colleges and universities, technical schools, and many private colleges and universities in this state.
It's free money for college for students that qualify. The only hitches are they keep up their grades, stay out of trouble and graduate from high school in Washington state. Eligible students include foster youths and students from low-income families, those that make 65 percent or less of the median family income, which is currently $47,000 for a family of four. That means the family income would have to be $30,550 a year or less.
And they must currently be in seventh, eighth or ninth grade.
Next year, only seventh- and eighth-graders will be able to apply. That means current seventh-graders will only have one more year to sign up, and current eighth- and ninth-graders that don't sign up this year will lose the opportunity.
"Time is of the essence to reach the current eighth- and ninth-graders," Morales-Castro says.
Higher education isn't cheap. Tuition at places such as the University of Washington and Washington State University can cost as much as an estimated $7,000 annually. On the lower end of the financial spectrum, it costs about $1,800 a year to attend Yakima Valley Community College.
"We don't want finances to be the reason they're not seeking higher education," says Maria Mendoza, a college preparatory adviser at Davis, where 423 freshman have signed up for the scholarship and another 414 are eligible. "We want students to take advantage of this opportunity."
To fund the College Bound Scholarship, the Legislature allocated $7.4 million in 2007. That money will pay for the first two years of the program, which will begin distributing the scholarship money for students in 2012.
The scholarship aims to make higher education accessible for thousands of students. It's designed to motivate them to pursue a college education at a young age.
Statewide, about 30,000 students have signed up for the scholarship this year, according to David Goehner, a spokesman for the ESD. About 60,000 more are eligible.
Locally, Morales-Castro and school counselors have been working to spread the word.
"We all have the same mission: to increase the college-bound culture in the Yakima community," Morales-Castro says. "We're trying to do whatever we can to get them to sign up, to get the word out."
That includes classroom presentations, parent nights and community events, like an upcoming informational meeting at YVCC. Morales-Castro says she's hoping students will take the pledge and sign up for the scholarship at the forum, scheduled for 6 to 8 p.m. June 8.
Students are asked to promise to:
* Do well in middle school and high school, and graduate with a cumulative high school grade point average of at least 2.0 on a 4.0 scale.
* Not commit a felony.
* Apply for additional financial aid by submitting a Free Application for Federal Student Aid, or FAFSA, in their senior year of high school.
"All those requirements are things kids do or should be doing anyhow -- not getting a felony, graduating with a C average," says Nick Hartman, an eighth-grade counselor at West Valley Junior High School. "The hardest part of this is filling out the form, and it's not a difficult form.
"We're going to put a copy of the application in our next newsletter."
Hartman is also the College Bound Scholarship coordinator for the West Valley School District, where 37 of 119 eligible ninth-graders have signed up for the scholarship. That's 31 percent of eligible ninth-graders in the district.
Fifty of 148 eligible eighth-graders have also signed up. That's about 34 percent of eligible eighth-graders in West Valley.
"We're trying to make a push here before the deadline to get as many students signed up as we can," says Peter Finch, assistant superintendent for learning and teaching at the West Valley School District.
While only a fraction of eligible students have signed up in some districts, the Mabton School District is bucking the trend, nearing 100 percent participation. So far, 68 of 72 eligible Mabton seventh-graders have turned in their applications. So have 54 of 66 eligible Mabton eighth-graders and 72 of 77 eligible Mabton ninth-graders.
"I'm out there during lunch, in the classrooms, you name it, always hassling the kids to get their applications in," says JR Gomez, coordinator of the Latina/o Outreach Program at WSU-Tri-Cities and coordinator of the College Bound Scholarship for the Mabton School District.
To celebrate the fact they're college-bound, the district is hosting a College Bound ceremony and barbecue May 28. Parents will receive information and have the chance to ask questions. Students will publicly take the pledge and receive certificates.
"We're going to frame them as well, just to make it special, just to show we really care and support them in their educational endeavors," Gomez says.
In Yakima, Cardenas learned about the scholarship from a counselor at Lewis and Clark Middle School last year and signed up when he was in eighth grade, in the first year of the program.
"I just thought it would take a lot of weight off my shoulders," says Cardenas, who's hoping to attend the University of Washington and major in business. Plus, "It sort of inspired me more to go to college."
His parents -- a fruit warehouse worker and health and beauty products saleswoman, both from Mexico -- didn't go to college. He could become the first in his immediate family to do so.
"I'm just grateful to have this scholarship," he says. "We're not the only ones struggling. There's a lot of families struggling with money for college."
Like other students who've signed up, Cardenas promised to keep up his grades and stay out of trouble. That means no felonies and maintaining a grade point average of at least a 2.0.
"They're doable," Cardenas says of those requirements. "You gotta keep your head up if you want to follow your dream and go to college."
If he holds up his end of the bargain and still qualifies financially when he graduates in 2012, he'll receive free college tuition and fees and a $500 stipend for books for four years.
"It's a great opportunity," Cardenas says. "I think it will help me explore the world."


College Scholarship offers a lot