The City of New Haven, along with Yale University, is planning on offering local New Haven students free tuition to state universities. Most of the $4.5 million in annual funding for the New Haven Promise program is to come from Yale.
The whole point of the program is to help curb the horrendous drop-out rate in New Haven public schools. Each student will be eligible to receive up to 100% tuition for a state university if they maintain a 3.0 GPA and 90% attendance rate. Once they get in to college, they must maintain at least a 2.5 GPA to continue receiving the funding. The program also implements a sliding scale, allowing students who have attended New Haven public schools since kindergarten to receive the full 100% tuition, and students attending since the 9th grade to receive 65% tuition. Students must have attended New Haven schools since at least the ninth grade to be eligible.
Two things I like about this program are: 1) It has a lot of private funding and 2) It has a lot of caveats to mitigate risk of failure. It’s good for students who work hard and want to succeed
I’m not surprised to see Yale buy into this. As a New Haven resident, I see firsthand the issues Yale has with its community. It’s not uncommon to hear about incidents involving students and the community. This past weekend, a campus party ended with a bit of violence as uninvited “New Haven residents” got in a fight with members of the Yale heavyweight crew team while being escorted out of a private campus party. Earlier in the school year, several students were involved in a police raid on a private party in the night club district. The latter wasn’t a real issue of Yale vs. its neighbors – it was mostly Yale students vs. the New Haven Police. The former, however, is more common and more tricky to deal with.
Yale is practically a fortress to outsiders. I have friends who are students, and they’ve told me about the warnings they’ve received, and continue to receive, from the school regarding student safety. It’s a constant struggle. The surrounding neighborhoods are known for illicit activities. Yale has taken measures in the past to create a buffer for students, such as providing financial incentives for faculty to buy or rent property near campus to raise the local profile a bit. The decision to help fund New Haven Promise seems to follow along those lines – by encouraging local students to focus more on academics, it will help the city as a whole raise its profile and hopefully stem some of the problems that have plagued the schools for years.
Such a program will take several years to produce results. I hope the private funding does pick up. I hope students do take advantage of the program. Hopefully at the very least some get teaching degrees and give back to their community through education.
Well done, Yale.
The whole point of the program is to help curb the horrendous drop-out rate in New Haven public schools. Each student will be eligible to receive up to 100% tuition for a state university if they maintain a 3.0 GPA and 90% attendance rate. Once they get in to college, they must maintain at least a 2.5 GPA to continue receiving the funding. The program also implements a sliding scale, allowing students who have attended New Haven public schools since kindergarten to receive the full 100% tuition, and students attending since the 9th grade to receive 65% tuition. Students must have attended New Haven schools since at least the ninth grade to be eligible.
Two things I like about this program are: 1) It has a lot of private funding and 2) It has a lot of caveats to mitigate risk of failure. It’s good for students who work hard and want to succeed
I’m not surprised to see Yale buy into this. As a New Haven resident, I see firsthand the issues Yale has with its community. It’s not uncommon to hear about incidents involving students and the community. This past weekend, a campus party ended with a bit of violence as uninvited “New Haven residents” got in a fight with members of the Yale heavyweight crew team while being escorted out of a private campus party. Earlier in the school year, several students were involved in a police raid on a private party in the night club district. The latter wasn’t a real issue of Yale vs. its neighbors – it was mostly Yale students vs. the New Haven Police. The former, however, is more common and more tricky to deal with.
Yale is practically a fortress to outsiders. I have friends who are students, and they’ve told me about the warnings they’ve received, and continue to receive, from the school regarding student safety. It’s a constant struggle. The surrounding neighborhoods are known for illicit activities. Yale has taken measures in the past to create a buffer for students, such as providing financial incentives for faculty to buy or rent property near campus to raise the local profile a bit. The decision to help fund New Haven Promise seems to follow along those lines – by encouraging local students to focus more on academics, it will help the city as a whole raise its profile and hopefully stem some of the problems that have plagued the schools for years.
Such a program will take several years to produce results. I hope the private funding does pick up. I hope students do take advantage of the program. Hopefully at the very least some get teaching degrees and give back to their community through education.
Well done, Yale.
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