The USC SCholars Program, an outreach program aimed at helping first-generation and low-income students transfer to selective universities, will be coming to an end next year after the Jack Kent Foundation decided not to renew funding.
Since 2006 the SCholars Program has used small staffs, based out of USC and other universities including UC Berkley and Cornell, to mentor and support high-achieving community college students make it to four-year schools.
SCholar Tina Feng, a junior at USC, shares how she feels about the SCholars Program ending. (Video by Whitney Blaine)
USC’s program specifically helps students from East Los Angeles Community College (ELAC), Los Angeles Trade-Technical College (LATTC) and Los Angeles City College (LACC); they must apply to the SCholars program a year before they plan to transfer.
Once accepted these students receive free workshops on how to apply to universities, how to secure funding, about campus visits, as well as individual college counseling. Those students who choose to apply to USC for college, and are accepted, also receive additional support through writing workshops, guidance in applying for grants and financing and are even hosted two weeks before school start to help integrate them into the school community.
Judi Garbuio, associate dean of Academic Recognition and Scholars Program, talks about what USC will be losing without the SCholars Program .
“We also help students apply for money to go on study abroad and alternative spring breaks. Transfer students tend not to take advantage of these kinds of opportunities or the social components at the school so we provide an extra push,” said Carmen Soto, program assistant of the USC SCholars Program.
Unfortunately for USC SCholars, and local community college students, these opportunities will soon come to an end after the $1 million the Jack Kent Foundation threw towards this transfer initiative dried up. USC SCholars Program staff has been scrambling to obtain some outside revenue, but so far has been unsuccessful. Now they’ve been forced to officially call it quits start August 2010.
“Unfortunately, nobody has an extra $250,000 to give out,” Judy Garbuio, associate dean of Academic Recognition and Scholars Programs, told the Daily Trojan. It takes $200,000 to $250,000 a year to operate the USC SCholars Program.
Programs at the other universities will also have to obtain their own funding; the Jack Kent Foundation told ATVN it only intended to fund the SCholars Program for four years and hoped the universities would find their own financing.
For continuing coverage of the SCholars Program, check back to atvn.org and watch ATVN live at 6 p.m. on Trojan Vision 8 or catch the live stream on http://www.trojanvision.com.
