by Chanel L. Donaldson | Jan 17, 2020 | News1
A Newark student receives assistance filling out the federal aid application Tuesday at Barringer High School.
PHOTO CREDIT: Devna Bose/Chalkbeat
Filling out the federal student aid application is challenging even for savvy parents. For those who aren’t native English speakers, the complicated form can be mind-boggling. Thanks to volunteers and an organized campaign in Newark, more families can now tackle the form.
The Newark FAFSA Challenge is a collaborative effort that local organizations, government officials, and school administrators launched in October to help students complete the Free Application for Federal Student Aid, which makes them eligible to receive federal grants, work-study, and loans. Last year, 2,094 of Newark’s 3,519 graduating students completed their applications.
“I know all my friends want to have a post-secondary education, and I know it’s a struggle for them to think about going to college because they don’t think they can get past the high school phase,“ said senior Yinett Rodriguez, who volunteered at an event at Barringer High last week to help students fill out the FAFSA. “Most of the students here don’t speak much English. I’m bilingual. I always encourage them to complete their FAFSA anyway.”
Only about 35% of Newark high school seniors had completed the FAFSA as of January, said Reginald Lewis, executive director of the Newark City of Learning Collaborative, one of the organizers of the challenge. He hopes that percentage will get closer to the campaign’s goal of 70% with other events scheduled in coming months.
Nationally, about 60% of students completed the form last year, while Newark Public Schools had an average completion rate of 63.3%. Campaign organizers hope that helping students will result in a 10% increase in completion rates in Newark by June.
“It’s very clear that high schools with high rates of students of color and low-income students have low FAFSA filing rates,” said Ellie Bruecker, a fifth-year doctoral student at the University of Wisconsin-Madison who researches FAFSA filing. “Lots of those students are eligible but don’t fill out their FAFSA. Filing rates are higher at wealthier schools, where they might not be eligible for federal aid.”
More than one out of four Newark residents lives in poverty. Poor students also are far less likely than their wealthy peers to earn college degrees, and just 19% of Newarkers have college degrees, compared with 45% of New Jersey residents and 40% of U.S. adults.
Students often don’t complete their federal aid application because they think they’re ineligible for financial aid or don’t know how to complete the form. And even after students submit their application, problems can arise, especially if they are from immigrant families.
“If something is unclear in your FAFSA, you’re flagged to verify it,” Bruecker said. “That process has to be more challenging to verify for students who don’t have parents who attended college in the United States or students with parents who didn’t complete their taxes.”
“The challenge we’re having right now is that I think there are a lot of parents who come to the United States from other countries who don’t have some paperwork,” said Barringer parent liaison Charles Shepherd. “So students don’t have the information or proper documents to fill the forms out.”
He said about 50 of the 450 seniors at Barringer have started filling out their federal aid application for the next school year.
Even though the FAFSA is offered in Spanish, most of the six families who attended Tuesday’s event needed translators to complete their application. The Newark City of Learning Collaborative trained bilingual volunteers to help students, Lewis said.
“The form is really complicated for native English speakers. It’s complicated for me, and I’ve been studying it for five years,” Bruecker said. “Trying to navigate it when English is not your native language I would imagine is incredibly difficult.”
—
This article originally appeared here.
by Chanel L. Donaldson | Jan 17, 2020 | News1
In our ongoing effort to expand access to dual enrollment, NCLC has arranged a free opportunity for approximately 90 Newark high school students to take classes at Rutgers University-Newark in the spring semester. Dual enrollment is a pre-college preparation strategy that allows high school students to take credit-bearing college courses. Students from all of Newark’s public high schools, Great Oaks Legacy Charter School, St. Benedict’s Prep, the Opportunity Youth Network (OYN), and People’s Prep attended orientation on campus on Friday, January 10 and Tuesday, January 14, 2020. The 11th and 12th graders gathered in Ackerson Hall to prepare for their upcoming classes at the School of Arts and Sciences-Newark (SASN) and the School of Public Affairs and Administration (SPAA). Students also got a personal tour of the campus and each received new RU-N IDs. An additional orientation was held in the evening on Thursday, January 16, 2020 at Central High School to give parents the opportunity to learn more and ask questions about the dual enrollment initiative. High school students will begin classes alongside Rutgers undergraduates on Tuesday, January 21, 2020.
We are grateful to all of our colleagues who have made this possible, specifically: our champion of the dual enrollment initiative at Rutgers University-Newark, Sherri-Ann Butterfield, Executive Vice Chancellor; our SASN colleagues, Sofia Pinto-Figueroa, Associate Dean of Undergraduate Education and Dean of Academic Services and Katherine Lopez, Assistant Dean for Academic Integrity and General Advisement; our SPAA colleague, Aaron Gibbs, Associate Dean of Student and Academic Services; and all of the staff at the Office of Summer and Winter Sessions. A special thanks to our colleagues at the Newark Board of Education, specifically Mario Santos, Assistant Superintendent for High Schools, Liana Summey, Special Assistant for High Schools, and Vernon Pullins, Supervisor of Guidance at the Office of Student Life. Special thanks also to Didier Jean-Baptiste, Dean of Seniors and College Placement at St. Benedict’s; Monet Kendall-Turner, Director of College Counseling and Jared Taillefer, CEO at Great Oaks; Tahirah Jordan Crawford, Director of College Placement at People’s Prep; and Rana Hamed, Graduate and Career Pathways Manager and Mark Comesañas, Executive Director of Program and Instruction at OYN.
by Chanel L. Donaldson | Nov 26, 2019 | Partner Highlights
Newark Public High School students got a special treat on Saturday, November 23, 2019 when they were invited to watch Seton Hall University’s men’s basketball team take on Florida A&M University at the Prudential Center. As a part of Seton Hall’s Newark Day, about 40 Newark high schoolers were treated to a box seat experience in the arena, as well as an opportunity to meet with Seton Hall admissions representatives and learn more about the University. Seton Hall’s Interim Provost and Executive Vice President, Karen Boroff, Ph.D. sat and talked with students as they cheered on the Pirates, who got a win over the Rattlers.
by Chanel L. Donaldson | Nov 18, 2019 | Partner Highlights
Pictured: Associate Provost for Undergraduate Education and Dean of University College David S. Hood and Assistant Provost for Student Success Danielle Insalaco-Egan
Montclair State University will redesign and strengthen its network of support services to give students a more efficient path to a degree, thanks to a federal grant from the U.S. Department of Education.
The five-year, $2,227,640 award will be used to fund the University-wide initiative “Advising 2025: Creating a Coordinated Care Network for Student Success.” The funding is provided through the Department of Education’s Title III Part A Programs – Strengthening Institutions, which helps eligible institutions expand their ability to serve low-income students by providing funds to strengthen academic quality, institutional management and fiscal stability.
Advising 2025’s three activity areas – creating student success centers, strengthening Montclair State’s new student seminar and providing professional development – will allow the University to develop a coordinated care network that enhances communication among faculty, academic advisors, career counselors, mentoring and tutors to transform its student support system. The overarching goal will be increasing the number of students who persist to complete a bachelor’s degree at Montclair State University.
“The success of our students is the unifying mission of Montclair State University,” says Provost and Vice President for Academic Affairs Willard Gingerich. “This grant will allow Montclair State to further motivate student intellectual development and catch at-risk students before they fail, enabling us fully to live up to the hallmark ‘small college’ feel that has made this large University the institution of choice for generations of New Jersey families.”
The funding will allow the University to make a sweeping impact. Student Success Centers will be created and housed in each of Montclair State University’s undergraduate colleges and schools, enhancing the institution’s advising model and providing highly personalized and proactive attention to students across the University.
Montclair State’s new student seminar will also be revamped and will include new peer mentoring and financial literacy programming designed to both ease the transition to college and deliver critical financial skills for the rest of a student’s life. These initiatives will be supported by comprehensive professional development programming for faculty and staff, new staff positions and technological upgrades that provide the necessary tools to facilitate the plan.
Montclair State has already invested in the redesigned coordinated care network through the launch of Navigate, an online student success platform designed to help faculty and support areas engage with students more efficiently, for the fall 2019 semester. The platform’s predictive analytics will strengthen the University’s ability to provide targeted interventions for students and more effectively focus resources.
“This funding will allow the University to continue to advance the student success agenda outlined in its new strategic plan,” says Associate Provost for Undergraduate Education and Dean of University College David S. Hood. “Through this grant award, we will build upon recent academic innovations at Montclair State University, such as the creation of University College. This funding is becoming increasingly critical to institutions as they work to ensure more students obtain degrees in the most efficient, timely manner possible, so we are fortunate to have received this award so we can help heed the State of New Jersey’s calls to action outlined in its strategic plan for higher education.”
This article was originally published here.
by Chanel L. Donaldson | Oct 31, 2019 | News1
Citywide Effort Pushes for 70 Percent FAFSA Completion Rate
(Newark, NJ) — Today, Newark officially launched its first effort to increase the percentage of Newark high school seniors who complete the Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA).
Mayor Ras J. Baraka and city leaders Reginald Lewis, Executive Director of the Newark City of Learning Collaborative; Catherine Wilson, President and CEO of the United Way of Greater Newark; and Jeffrey Trzeciak, Director of the Newark Public Library; held a press conference at Newark City Hall on Thur., Oct. 31, to unveil the Newark FAFSA Challenge. The Newark FAFSA Challenge is a citywide initiative that aims to increase the city’s FAFSA completion rate to 70 percent by June 2020, a 10-percentage point increase over the June 2019 rate of 60 percent.
“We want every single one of our graduating seniors to have the greatest opportunities imaginable to advance their education and achieve their goals in life, whether they are in the arts, sciences, business, the law, medicine, engineering, and public service. The costs of achieving these dreams and goals have risen vastly, and we as a city and caring community must do everything in our power to enable our youth to achieve them. These young men and women of today are the future leaders of tomorrow, and how we create a more educated city today will create a more empowered, safer, equitable, and collaborative city,” said Mayor Baraka.
Nationally, 90 percent of high school seniors who complete the FAFSA will immediately enroll in college, a key predictor of eventual college completion. The FAFSA and, by extension, financial readiness for college are important aspects of the transition for prospective college students.
Despite its importance for college preparation, the FAFSA remains a significant hurdle for low-income students in particular. Low-income students are less likely to complete the FAFSA for a variety of reasons, including “verification melt.” Verification melt refers to low-income students disproportionately being required to verify their family’s income (an estimated 50 percent of low-income students compared to 30 percent of students overall). As a result, 22 percent of those students never complete the FAFSA.
“The Newark FAFSA Challenge has the potential to generate over $3 million more in state and federal grant money for Newark’s graduating high school class of 2020,” said Reginald Lewis, Executive Director of the Newark City of Learning Collaborative. “With all of Newark coming together for the first time to support our students and families with completing the FAFSA, so many more of our young people will have the resources to pay for college.”
Newark now joins a host of locales around the country who lead their own FAFSA Challenges, including Detroit, Baltimore, and the state of Florida.
The Newark FAFSA Challenge’s signature sponsors are the Newark City of Learning Collaborative, the United Way of Greater Newark, and the Newark Public Library. Additional partners supporting the effort include the Mayor’s Office, the Newark Board of Education, the Essex County Schools of Technology, and several local colleges and community organizations.
“The Newark Public Library is a proud partner with the Newark City of Learning Collaborative and United Way of Greater Newark. We are pleased to be working together to simplify processes and make it easier for Newarkers to be able to get into college,” said Jeffrey Trzeciak, Director of the Newark Public Library.
A key feature of the Newark FAFSA Challenge is its promise to offer personal assistance to high school seniors and their parents to complete the complex application. Nine designated hubs are located in each Newark ward where trained volunteers will offer personal FAFSA completion assistance through June 2020. The hubs also house kiosks with financial aid information.
“United Way of Greater Newark has worked to recruit and train volunteers to help families through the FAFSA process. With a mission to disrupt poverty, we believe college is a pathway towards a bright future and recognize the FAFSA process can be complicated,” said Catherine Wilson, President and CEO of the United Way of Greater Newark. “The efforts of our experts and volunteers have made this process both easier and less cumbersome for families, helping students gain much needed financial aid towards the completion of their degree.”
For more information about the Newark FAFSA Challenge, the list of designated hubs, and dates of FAFSA completion events, visit newarknclc.org/NewarkFAFSAChallenge.
by Chanel L. Donaldson | Oct 23, 2019 | News1
PRESS CONFERENCE: NEWARK FAFSA CHALLENGE
THURSDAY, OCTOBER 31, 2019 AT 11:30 AM, CITY HALL, 920 BROAD STREET
Join Mayor Ras Baraka, the Newark City of Learning Collaborative (NCLC), the United Way of Greater Newark, and the Newark Public Library on Thursday, October 31, 2019 at 11:30 am at Newark City Hall for the launch of the Newark FAFSA Challenge. School leaders, educators, parents, and policymakers are invited to learn about the citywide effort to increase Newark’s FAFSA completion rate. The press conference will feature remarks from Mayor Ras Baraka; NCLC Executive Director, Reginald Lewis; United Way of Greater Newark President and CEO, Catherine Wilson; and Newark Public Library Director, Jeffrey Trzeciak.
About the Newark FAFSA Challenge
The Newark FAFSA Challenge is a citywide effort to encourage more Newark high school seniors to complete the Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA). For the 2018-2019 academic year, only about 60% of Newark high school seniors completed the FAFSA by June 2019. Our goal for the 2019-2020 academic year is to increase Newark’s FAFSA completion rate to 70% by June 2020. The FAFSA Challenge is co-sponsored by NCLC, the Newark Public Library, and the United Way of Greater Newark. Additional partners will maintain designated hubs in every Newark ward to offer personal assistance to high school seniors and their parents.
by Chanel L. Donaldson | Oct 4, 2019 | Partner Highlights
$16,000 in scholarship awards available exclusively to New Jersey students in Essex and Passaic Counties!
As a commitment to our mission of serving those in need and our local community, Seton Hall is offering this exciting new award.
Essex and Passaic Counties have been chosen to support students living or attending high school in the counties in which Seton Hall has a campus. Our main campus in South Orange and our School of Law in Newark are in Essex County, and our Interprofessional Health Sciences Campus is in the towns of Nutley and Clifton, which are in Essex and Passaic counties.
This award can be combined with other awards and can be used to cover any directly billed costs, including undergraduate flattuition charges, fees and university-sponsored room and board. This award is renewable if the student files the FAFSA annually, maintains satisfactory academic progress, earns at least 30 credits per academic year, and remains Pell eligible.
Applicants must file the FAFSA form and apply for admission by January 15 of their senior year of high school to be considered for the award. There is no special scholarship application required for this award. The scholarship is automatically awarded in late January to students who meet the eligibility requirements outlined below:
Award Eligibility
- Incoming freshman who apply for fall admission and submit a FAFSA by January 15
- Minimum SAT score 1120 or ACT 23
- Unweighted minimum HS GPA 3.0 (B)
- Attend high school in or have a permanent address in Essex or Passaic County, New Jersey, for at least a year
- Pell eligibility as determined by the FAFSA
Award Amount
This $4,000 award is renewable for three additional years for a total award of $16,000. When combined with other Seton Hall scholarships and need-based grants, this award helps make Seton Hall nearly tuition free to students receiving maximum Pell and TAG awards! In addition, students can still qualify for need-based aid and apply for other scholarships. Learn more at www.shu.edu/scholarships.
Application Procedure
There is no application required for this scholarship; the scholarship is automatically awarded to students who are admitted to Seton Hall and meet the eligibility requirements.
This article was originally published here.
by Chanel L. Donaldson | Sep 27, 2019 | News1
NCLC Executive Director, Reginald Lewis, was recognized as one of NJ’s 2019 Education Power 50 by NJBIZ.
The leaders profiled in the Education Power 50 list are responsible for managing organizations, making policies that directly affect the institutions, or are themselves directly responsible for imparting knowledge to students, apprentices, and the citizenry at large. Those featured include teachers, administrators, executives, and public officials. While each of their backgrounds are varied, their work is all focused on the same goal: Making New Jerseyans smarter about the world around them. In that way, they all help make the state a better place to live, work, and do business.
See the full Education Power 50 list here.
Read Reginald Lewis’ feature here.
by Chanel L. Donaldson | Jul 23, 2019 | News1
NEWARK, NJ — Barclays has awarded $25,000 to the Newark City of Learning Collaborative (NCLC) to support summer programming for Newark high school students in the College Pathway Initiative.
Since 2017, the College Pathway Initiative has recruited a diverse group of Newark 10th graders to participate in early college planning and preparation. Students remain with the program through high school graduation and the transition to college. The first class of College Pathway Initiative Fellows graduated high school this year and about 90 percent of those graduates are starting college in the fall.
Students visit the Barclays Whippany Campus on July 19, 2019
The Summer Leadership Institute sponsored by Barclays allows NCLC to extend the College Pathway Initiative to include summer programming. Approximately 50 rising high school juniors and seniors are participating in five weeks of college prep and career development programming with an emphasis on 21st century learning skills. The Summer Leadership Institute sponsored by Barclays also integrates writing skill development, arts and social justice, and community service.
In addition to providing funding for the Summer Leadership Institute, Barclays is also supporting the program’s career development component with experiential learning opportunities. On July 19, Barclays professionals hosted a mock interview session with the students at their Whippany Campus. The Barclays staff also shared insights with the students on their career pathways and professional networking.
“The Summer Leadership Institute sponsored by Barclays is an amazing opportunity for our students to use their summer wisely by engaging in early college and career preparation. We are extremely grateful to Barclays for making this possible for Newark youth,” said NCLC Executive Director Reginald Lewis.
For more information about NCLC and the College Pathway Initiative, visit nclc2025.org.
by Chanel L. Donaldson | Jun 10, 2019 | News1
A CPI Fellow works with Program Associate Christine Harding (r.) and Mentor Lisbeth Masache (l.) to review her financial aid package.
(Newark, NJ — June 10, 2019) Newark’s graduating high school class of 2019 will include 25 College Pathway Initiative (CPI) Fellows, almost all of whom plan to immediately enroll in college in fall 2019.
With support from the Kresge and Ford Foundations, CPI was launched in 2017 as a demonstration effort to test innovative strategies for engaging Newark high school students in college preparation. The Newark City of Learning Collaborative (NCLC) at Rutgers University-Newark manages the program.
“CPI is a demonstration effort because our goal is to test innovative strategies for keeping young people engaged so that they remain on track for three critical phases of the program,” said NCLC Associate Director Barry Ford. “We want our Fellows to graduate high school on time, immediately enroll in college or some post-secondary option, and ultimately earn their desired degree or credential. And we’ll be with them every step of the way through that process.”
The current graduating cohort was the first recruited to participate at the time of CPI’s launch. Each year since, NCLC staff have recruited a diverse group of Newark 10th graders for the program. CPI is currently on its third cohort.
Once Fellows are admitted to CPI, they participate in twice-monthly college prep programming. Beyond simply the typical college readiness activities – like SAT prep, FAFSA and application assistance, or college tours – CPI interweaves fun elements to pique student interest with two curriculum tracks in arts and social justice. In the arts track, Fellows work with local artists and Rutgers-Newark faculty in workshops that include portraiture and digital 3D modeling and printing. The social justice track engages Fellows in seminars on leadership, Newark’s history, and youth advocacy. Keeping students interested is a key element to ensuring they remain with the program during their high school and college years.
“In [CPI] I learned more about liberal arts type, abstract ideas. That helped me grow – as a student and as a person. I used to be more shy, but [CPI] helped me become more self-assured. I had to do a college interview and if it wasn’t for [CPI], I would have been so nervous. I was much more prepared than I would’ve been without them,” said Technology High School graduating senior Keidy Alcantara who will attend NJIT in fall 2019.
Of the Fellows graduating high school this year, about 90 percent have indicated that they are enrolling in college in the fall. This is a big win because immediate college enrollment, or enrolling by the October after high school graduation, is a key indicator of eventual college completion. A recent NCLC study found that of Newark students who graduated from high school between 2011 and 2016, only 54 percent immediately enrolled in college and only 23 percent earned any type of degree or credential within six years.
Many of the first graduating cohort will attend colleges close to home, like Rutgers University-Newark, NJIT, Montclair State University, and Essex County College, a trend matched by most of their peers. NCLC found that approximately 67 percent of 2011 to 2016 Newark high school graduates enrolled in a college or university within 10 miles of Newark.
“As we enter the college enrollment phase for our first cohort, we will focus on working with our university partners to ensure that our students – and by extension all Newark students – get the appropriate financial, social-emotional, and academic support to persist toward degree completion. We are intentional about having partnerships with local colleges and universities for this very reason,” said NCLC Executive Director Reginald Lewis.
To commemorate the high school graduation of the first cohort of CPI Fellows, NCLC is launching a social media campaign called #CPIFirstClass, which will highlight five graduating seniors. Follow NCLC on Instagram (@nclc2025) to read the Fellows’ reflections on high school and how CPI has helped them in their transition to college.
For more information about NCLC, visit nclc2025.org.
