How OU will use an $86 million grant to help low-income students attend college

The University of Oklahoma has announced an $86 million program — funded by a federal grant and state dollars — that encourages college readiness for students who come from low-income backgrounds.

The seven-year GEAR UP for LIFE (Learning and Investigating Future Education) initiative is being coordinated by the university’s K20 Center for Educational and Community Renewal and will focus on more than 8,200 students who attend 28 schools across 23 mostly rural school districts in Oklahoma. The big reveal of the program came Thursday in conjunction with the Innovative Learning Institute, an annual seminar organized by K20.

The K20 Center, a statewide research and development center, received a $43 million GEAR UP grant from the U.S. Department of Education. As a condition of the grant, that amount will be matched with funding from grant partners, including the Oklahoma’s Promise program, which was created by the state Legislature in 1992 and allows students in grades 8-11 from families meeting certain income requirements to earn a college or technology center tuition scholarship.

According to U.S. Census Bureau figures, only 26.8 percent of Oklahomans age 25 and older have earned at least a bachelor’s degree. Obtaining such a degree has economic benefits, as the median annual salary for those with a bachelor’s degree increases almost $8,000 within five years after graduation, according to the Oklahoma State Regents for Higher Education.

“We are in a world that is increasingly knowledge-based, where we know our prosperity, individually and collectively, depends upon our ability to receive an education," said OU President Joseph Harroz, speaking at the announcement event.

"Yet … too many institutions are too expensive, or are perceived as too expensive, and people in the lower socioeconomic rung, through no fault of their own, cannot have access to those,” Harroz said. “It’s particularly acute in Oklahoma. That’s what's keeping us from moving forward to be prosperous. Education is economic prosperity."

How the GEAR UP for LIFE grant program works

GEAR UP is a grant program started by the U.S. Department of Education in 1998. The acronym stands for “Gaining Early Awareness and Readiness for Undergraduate Programs.” The program provides six-year or seven-year grants to states and partnerships to provide services at high-poverty middle and high schools. The grantees serve student cohorts from middle school through high school. GEAR UP funds also are used to provide college scholarships to low-income students.

The goal is to develop college-going cultures in schools that routinely deal with high poverty. To be eligible for GEAR UP, schools must have a seventh-grade educational program and 50 percent or more of the student body must qualify for the National School Lunch Program.

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The GEAR UP for LIFE grant will be K20’s sixth (and largest) GEAR UP grant, said Leslie Williams, the center’s managing director. Other Oklahoma agencies, including the Oklahoma State Regents for Higher Education, also have ongoing GEAR UP grant programs not connected with the OU grant programs

“Students that are in GEAR UP go on college campuses every year. We take them wherever their school wants to go,” Williams said. “Yes, we want them to go to OU, but during those seven years, they see a lot of campuses. We want them to (visit) regionals, jucos, large universities, for them to see all the different possibilities. What we tell our GEAR UP students is we want them to graduate from high school and to be prepared so that they have a choice.”

Juan de Dios Trujillo Velazquez of Oklahoma City, a current senior industrial and systems engineering major at OU, said without the help of GEAR UP counselors who assisted him while attending Roosevelt Middle School and U.S. Grant High School, he probably wouldn’t have made it to college.

“As a young student, I didn’t really understand the importance of what GEAR UP was doing at the time,” Velazquez said. “As I got older, I began to truly recognize the value of the services GEAR UP had to offer. As an undocumented immigrant student, I was not sure I could even go to college. Now, as an OU student, I was able to provide tutoring and mentoring to other students from my community with similar circumstances.”

Harroz said many students who benefit from the GEAR UP program are, like Velazquez, the first from their families to attend college. Harroz told the story of his father, who was a first-generation college student.

“It changes everything,” Harroz said. “When they go (to college), the family is changed, the individual is changed, the community is changed. All of a sudden, everything is possible. Without it, it’s so limiting.”

What Oklahoma schools will receive aid through the GEAR UP for LIFE grant?

The schools that K20 will work with on the GEAR UP for LIFE grant include:

• Anadarko Middle School

• Caney Valley Middle School

• Catoosa Wells Middle School

• Checotah Middle School

• Chickasha Middle School

• Chouteau-Mazie Middle School

• Davis Middle School

• Del City Middle School

• Dewar Middle School

• Drumright Virgil Cooper Middle School

• El Reno Etta Dale Junior High School

• Elmore City Junior High School

• Enid Dewitt Waller Middle School

• Enid Emerson Middle School

• Enid Longfellow Middle School

• Frontier Elementary School

• Guymon Central Junior High School

• Lawton Central Middle School

• Lawton Eisenhower Middle School

• Lawton MacArthur Middle School

• Midwest City Middle School

• Muskogee Ben Franklin Academy

• Oklahoma Union Middle School

• Salina Middle School

• Sallisaw Middle School

• Shawnee Middle School

• Vian Middle School

• Wagoner Middle School

This article originally appeared on Oklahoman: OU announces $86 million GEAR UP initiative for college readiness