Gates Foundation Awards $12-Million to Improve College Completion in 4 Cities

The Chronicle of Higher Education

September 27, 2010

By Jennifer Gonzalez

Four cities will receive a total of $12-million in grants from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation to improve college-completion rates among their low-income students.
The foundation, along with the National League of Cities, announced on Monday that Mesa, Ariz., New York City, Riverside, Calif., and San Francisco would each receive $3-million over the next year three years. The cities will use the money to support a variety of efforts to get more of their residents to graduate from college, including aligning the academic standards of high schools and colleges and adopting early-assessment and college-preparation strategies.
Also on Monday, Mayor Michael Bloomberg of New York announced at an NBC News Education Nation Summit that the City University of New York and IBM would open an unusual high school that would allow students to complete an associate degree.
Mr. Bloomberg said students who graduated with a “qualified record” would be guaranteed a job with IBM and “a ticket to the middle class, or even beyond.”
He said the ultimate goal of the effort is to reduce the number of students who need remedial help in college and to double the number of students receiving associate degrees from the City University of New York by the end of the decade.
Allan Golston, president of the U.S. program at the Gates Foundation, said that a high-school diploma was no longer enough in today’s economic climate and labor market.
“We must not only ensure that young people have access to college; we must ensure that they go on to complete college and earn a degree or certificate with value in the workplace,” he said.
The American labor market will be short three million college-educated workers over the next eight years unless there is a significant increase in the number of young adults who complete college, according to the Georgetown University Center on Education and the Workforce. The cities selected for the grants have mayors who recognize the importance of increasing college completion and the long-term effects of an educated work force in their local economies, said Donald J. Borut, executive director of the National League of Cities.
The four cities were selected out of a total of seven that were originally awarded $4-million in planning grants last year. That grant supported a nine-month effort that brought together mayors, public-school superintendents, and community colleges to devise new ways of helping more students graduate from college.
The grants announced on Monday will allow the best plans to move forward. The three cities not selected for further financial support were Dayton, Ohio, Jacksonville, Fla., and Phoenix.
Scott Smith, the mayor of Mesa, Ariz., said he hoped the grant money would allow his city to solve a perplexing problem: Many of its students graduate from high school but decide not to further their education. He said the pattern created a huge gap in terms of attracting jobs to the region and improving the city’s economy.
“We need our citizens to reach their highest potential,” he said. “This is our future. It is how we can compete.”