A five-year, $5 million grant program will encourage collaboration among public school officials, nonprofit organizations, colleges, and city officials in Boston to help more students in the city’s public schools prepare for and succeed in higher education.
The Boston Foundation is sponsoring the effort to prepare more students for “getting ready, getting in, and getting through” college, with additional writing instruction, assistance with financial-aid forms and college applications, and academic support for students enrolled in college classes.
The grant was created in response to a study, funded by the foundation and the Carnegie Corporation of New York, that found that fewer than 36 percent of the graduates of Boston’s public high schools earned a two- or four-year college degree within seven years. The foundation has set an initial goal of boosting by 50 percent the number of Boston students in the graduating class of 2009 who earn a college degree.