College & Workforce Readiness

Pittsburgh College Fund Lands Donation

By Catherine Gewertz — December 11, 2007 2 min read
  • Save to favorites
  • Print

The Pittsburgh school district has secured a $100 million commitment to a fund that helps the city’s high school graduates afford college.

Officials from the school district and the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center announced on Dec. 5 that the medical center will give $10 million to the Pittsburgh Promise fund. The medical center will provide $2 for every $3 the district raises until the medical center’s contribution reaches $90 million.

The announcement represents a huge step for the fund, which had received only one contribution in the year since it opened: $10,000 from the local teachers’ union.

Superintendent Mark Roosevelt said he is optimistic that the new pledge and its matching mechanism will enable the district to reach its goal of amassing $250 million in the fund over 10 years and creating an endowment.

Mr. Roosevelt declined to say whether he has already lined up additional pledges that will trigger the medical center’s matching dollars. But he said he has done “a lot of work communicating with other folks, and I’m very optimistic. We will get this done.”

See Also

See other stories on education issues in Pennsylvania. See data on Pennsylvania’s public school system.

The superintendent teamed up with Pittsburgh Mayor Luke Ravenstahl last year to establish the fund as a way to keep families in Pittsburgh and to improve the future prospects of its young people. Enrollment in the city schools has declined from 35,000 in 2002 to 28,000 this year.

Local foundations withdrew their support from the schools five years ago, citing fiscal and leadership problems. (“Freeze on Grants Roils Pittsburgh District,” Aug. 7, 2002.)

But they reinstated their backing with a new cooperative fund to support Mr. Roosevelt’s initiatives. When he took the helm two years ago, he began focusing on revitalizing the district’s financial and academic picture by closing 22 schools, kicking off a major high school improvement campaign, and installing a new curriculum in elementary and middle schools.

“It’s absolutely necessary for Pittsburgh to have this kind of program,” he said in an interview.

Standards to Meet

This year’s 2,000 graduating seniors qualify for an annual scholarship of up to $5,000 to any public college or university in Pennsylvania, and some private schools in Pittsburgh’s Allegheny County, if they have attended city schools for the last four years and have at least a 2.0 grade point average in high school.

See Also

For more stories on this topic see Colleges and Careers.

Next year, the GPA requirement will be raised to 2.5, and graduates must have an 85 percent attendance rate to qualify. Graduates of the class of 2010 will have to have 90 percent attendance to qualify. Pennsylvania plans to introduce a required high school exit exam in the next few years, and when it does, students who pass it will qualify for scholarships of up to $10,000.

The Pittsburgh Promise is modeled after the Kalamazoo Promise, which pays up to 100 percent of tuition and fees for that city’s high school graduates to attend public colleges or universities in Michigan. The 2-year-old fund has paid about $3 million to about 700 students so far, said Bob Jorth, its executive administrator.

The Kalamazoo program has no high school GPA requirement, but students who use it must maintain a 2.0 GPA in college to hold onto their scholarships. Pittsburgh Promise scholarship recipients must do likewise.

Mr. Roosevelt said the secondary school GPA and attendance requirements in Pittsburgh’s program are intended to ensure that city students can afford to attend college, but are academically prepared to succeed there as well.

Events

Mathematics K-12 Essentials Forum Helping Students Succeed in Math
Student Well-Being Live Online Discussion A Seat at the Table: The Power of Emotion Regulation to Drive K-12 Academic Performance and Wellbeing
Wish you could handle emotions better? Learn practical strategies with researcher Marc Brackett and host Peter DeWitt.

EdWeek Top School Jobs

Teacher Jobs
Search over ten thousand teaching jobs nationwide — elementary, middle, high school and more.
View Jobs
Principal Jobs
Find hundreds of jobs for principals, assistant principals, and other school leadership roles.
View Jobs
Administrator Jobs
Over a thousand district-level jobs: superintendents, directors, more.
View Jobs
Support Staff Jobs
Search thousands of jobs, from paraprofessionals to counselors and more.
View Jobs

Read Next

College & Workforce Readiness Summer Jobs for Teens Are Now Scarce. Some Schools Are Trying to Change That
From on-campus job fairs to partnerships with local programs, these high schools are finding teens summer work.
5 min read
Hannah Waring, left, a student at Loudoun Valley High School, and Abby McDonough, a student at Liberty University, work in the strawberry stand at Wegmeyer Farms in Hamilton, Va., on May 23, 2017. Waring and McDonough worked at Wegmeyer Farms for the summer. Summer jobs are vanishing as U.S. teens spend more time in school and doing extra curricular activities, and face competition from older workers.
Hannah Waring, left, a student at Loudoun Valley High School, and Abby McDonough, a student at Liberty University, work in the strawberry stand at Wegmeyer Farms in Hamilton, Va., on May 23, 2017. The teen summer employment rate is down this year, but some schools are trying to create opportunities for their students.
Carolyn Kaster/AP
College & Workforce Readiness College for Students With Intellectual Disabilities Faces an Uncertain Future
Inclusive higher education programs benefit students with intellectual disabilities. But funding challenges are threatening their growth.
8 min read
Students in the TerpsEXCEED program celebrate in their caps and gowns with a photo on McKeldin Mall at the University of Maryland in College Park, Md.
Students in the TerpsEXCEED program celebrate in their caps and gowns with a photo on McKeldin Mall at the University of Maryland in College Park. Inclusive postsecondary programs offer education and opportunities for students with intellectual disabilities, but uncertainties around federal funding threaten their growth.
Photo Credit: Feldy Suwito, Image of Life Photography
College & Workforce Readiness Q&A 'Adulting 101': The High School Class Teaching Real-Life Skills
Beyond core academics, what skills should high school students master before they graduate?
6 min read
Unrecognizable woman using mobile phone while calculating the amount of her bills at home. Focus is on hand and cell phone.
E+/Getty
College & Workforce Readiness How Can Educators Support Students Not Going to College?
A bipartisan panel talks about slowing trends in college-going—and what it means for schools.
3 min read
Carter Crabtree, a Daviess County High School junior, learns to stack landscaping blocks with a mini excavator at a demonstration set up by Barnard Landscaping during the Homebuilder Association of Owensboro's annual Construction Career Day on Apr. 24, 2025, in Owensboro, Ky.
Carter Crabtree, a Daviess County High School junior, learns to stack landscaping blocks with a mini excavator at a demonstration set up by Barnard Landscaping during the Homebuilder Association of Owensboro's annual Construction Career Day on Apr. 24, 2025, in Owensboro, Ky. Leaders in education discuss how career-tech education programs can support non-college-bound students, in an online webinar.
Greg Eans/The Messenger-Inquirer via AP