Posted on 11/16/2005 3:05:06 AM PST by Ninian Dryhope
$12.3 million grant to help pave students' way to higher education
WASHINGTON - A $22 million package of grants unveiled Tuesday by U.S. Secretary of Education Margaret Spellings will help the University of Texas at Austin recruit and retain Hispanic students and broaden their presence on college campuses state- and nationwide, officials announced Tuesday.
A private $12.3 million grant will fund a program to help Hispanic students overcome the economic and social barriers that have prevented many from attending college, leaders from UT said. Another $1.6 million will go toward educational counseling programs at schools including the University of Houston, Texas A&M University and UT at San Antonio.
UT President Larry Faulkner pledged to create a campus culture more "comfortable and welcoming" to Hispanic students.
Sara Martinez Tucker, the president of the Hispanic Scholarship Fund, which received the grants from various private charities, said UT and the University of Georgia were chosen for the $12.3 million grant to test a pilot program for areas with an established Hispanic population (UT) and an emerging population Georgia).
The program will expand the Hispanic Scholarship Fund's regional offices so they can offer more outreach services.
Hispanics comprised 13.3 percent of UT-Austin's student body in 2004, according to the school, a proportion that has inched upward in recent years. According to the U.S. Census, more than one-third of the population statewide is Hispanic.
The five-year initiative was the largest chunk of the $22 million package that will filter through the scholarship fund, a California charity that helps Hispanics through college. The other grants will help pay for scholarships, educational outreach programs and peer counseling services nationwide.
Spellings said the grants were a strong step toward closing the achievement gap between Hispanics, who tend to come from poorer backgrounds, and whites. Nearly 30 percent of Hispanics leave high school before graduating, and just 36 percent of those who stay continue on to college.
"That's simply unacceptable," Spellings said. "If we don't get more students through high school and college ... then shame on us."
The $12.3 million from the Lilly Endowment Inc. followed a $50 million gift the Indianapolis-based charity gave to the Hispanic Scholarship Fund in 1999, the largest contribution made to a Hispanic organization in U.S. history.
Bull. It is not my fault if a kid, any kid, does not want to study and decides to drop out of high school or is not willing to work hard enough in school to get grades good enough to go to college.
Too many hispanics are illegal aliens and there is nothing about that fact in this article.
Wonder how this turd votes?
Private donatioin.........fine with me.
The article mentions that fact, it's just that the writer chose to use politically correct euphemisms rather than calling a spade a spade. Take a look:
"...UT and the University of Georgia were chosen for the $12.3 million grant to test a pilot program for areas with an established Hispanic population (UT) and an emerging population Georgia)."The "established Hispanic population" is referring to non-anchor babies and the "emerging population" is comprised of the children of illegal aliens.
Good old GOP Shamnesty.
Chertoff's comments yesterday and Garza's comments (US Amb to MX) and marriage to MX beer baronnes, McCain and Hegel'spandering - you would think this is a trend.
I guess the pubbies dont want to be in charge in 2006 and '08.
Must be the Bushes are paving the way for the Clintons in 2008.
How can you be for security and have open borders?
Anything that happens here will be squarely on the current admins and congress's shoulders.
I wonder how many bureaucrats will resign like they did in Jordan?
I think it means that there are now lots of Hispanics in Texas and that there will be lots of Hispanics in Georgia.
Exactly. I'm not going to hold my breath waiting for a white folk grant either.
Will they be tested fairly as others are and if they can't cut it than is that fair to others of other groups like White students?
Will it be verified that they are LEGAL citizens and so are their parents, or are they anchor babies?
Wonderful, take a group of people and allow them to get a go to college free card, what about deserving native Texan white students who's parents can't afford college?
Isn't a "Hispanic Scholarship Fund" as unconstitutionally racially discriminatory as the Blacks scholarships being challenged at Southern Illinois U., or the "Whotes only" scholarships of the Jim Crow era? To the extent the government is involved in the HSF, the government is sponsoring racial (ethnic?) separatism.
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