Cal Poly Pomona will receive a $230,000 grant to help 500 low-income high school students prepare for college via a program called Talent Search.
Students from the Chino Valley Unified School District will receive tutoring and advising at their schools, as well as attend weekend workshops and summer programs at Cal Poly Pomona. The program culminates in a graduation celebrating where the students will be attending college.
Ricardo Quintero, executive director of Cal Poly Pomona¿s Upward Bound program, says the grant is an important tool to promote the success of low-income and often first-generation college students.
¿They have no one to inspire them,¿ Quintero says. ¿The cards are stacked against them, and there¿s a huge disconnect between what they experience in high school and what we expect of them here.¿
The Talent Search program is one of the federal TRIO programs created by the Higher Education Act of 1965. It aims to educate students from disadvantaged backgrounds on their options for postsecondary education.
Cal Poly Pomona will receive $230,000 on September 1, and is eligible for a potential five years of support from the grant.
Quintero says the grant will help not only the 500 students in the program, but the university as a whole. Programs that reach out to lower-income communities help bring diversity to Cal Poly Pomona, which in turns brings in more funding for the school.
¿A lot of people don¿t realize that these programs are beneficial for more than just the students in them,¿ Quintero says. ¿They help the entire campus community.¿
(Photo: Clarissa Contreras and Mayra Rodriguez work on a physics problem on July 7, 2010, as part of the Upward Bound, which is also a federal TRIO program.)