Newswise — Indiana State University aims to help unlock accessibility to higher education by offering high school students micro-scholarships that reward taking small steps to college readiness.
Earn an A in biology or another core course? That’s worth $100.
Perfect attendance during the school year? Score another $100.
Passionate about community service? Earn $10 an hour toward your tuition bill. All of these steps — and many more — are small, achievable goals with measurable results that will help them be better students when they start college.
“We believe offering small financial rewards that can be accumulated over four years of high school will serve to encourage and incentivize more high school students who might otherwise not be able to attend college,” said John Beacon, vice president for Enrollment Management, Marketing and Communications. “Participating students can actually watch their cumulative total of college scholarships grow as they progress toward high school graduation.”The program is administered by Raise.Me, which was launched with support from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and Facebook.Any U.S. high school student with an unweighted 3.00 GPA is eligible to create a profile at www.raise.me.
The maximum award a student can accumulate over four years of high school is $11,200, which is disbursed over four years of college. To keep scholarships once enrolled, students must maintain good academic standing while completing 30 credit hours each academic year.
Raise.me is a social enterprise focused on expanding access to higher education, especially among low-income and first-generation students. Raise.me was developed in response to the fact most scholarships and grants today are awarded by colleges at the very end of high school — after a student has already done well or not, applied to a college or not and been accepted or not — which is often too late to impact a student’s college ambitions or choices. For more information, including how to sign up, go to www.indstate.edu/raiseme.
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