Louisville Business First
September 16, 2002
The Ford Foundation has awarded the Kentucky Community and Technical College System a $75,000 grant for two initiatives designed to foster dialogue on solutions for poverty
The money will fund the Governor's Summit on Quality of Life in the Commonwealth and a KCTCS asset-mapping process that will "assess what resources are available and what gaps need to be bridged to combat poverty in the commonwealth," according to a news release.
The summit, which is scheduled for Oct. 17, is intended to produce long-term collaboration aimed at raising Kentuckians' standard of living at least to the national average by 2020.
The goal of the Ford grants is to fund programs that enhance educational and economic opportunities for disadvantaged adults.
The Lexington-based KCTCS is a system of more than 50 community and technical colleges in Kentucky.
September 17, 2002
SHELBYVILLE, Ky. -- Public and private colleges and universities in Kentucky took in nearly $38 million last year from lottery-funded scholarships, according to state figures released yesterday.
The money went to 44,593 students who had a grade-point average of at least 2.5 and scored at least 15 on the ACT college entrance examination while they were in high school.
The figures are likely to shoot upward in the current fiscal year because 34,000 members of the high school class of 2002 qualified for awards, of whom 606 qualified for maximum awards -- $10,000 each over four years. In addition, 83,000 students still in high school already have qualified for $26.5 million.
But the figures are not going high enough for state officials. So Gov. Paul Patton shared a spotlight yesterday at Shelby County High School with the hip-hop group Nappy Roots to plug KEES -- Kentucky Educational Excellence Scholarships.
Nappy Roots, whose six members met at Western Kentucky University, frequently promotes education. Patton told students that more of them should consider college or technical school. Education ''is the single most important factor in determining the respect, lifestyle, the home, the car you will have in your lifetime.''
Scholarships are awarded passively. There is no application. Money is automatically set aside by the state for every student with grades high enough to qualify.
''It's amazing to me,'' Sen. Tim Shaughnessy, who helped push legislation for the scholarships, said in an interview after the rally. ''I still run into parents who don't know about the program.''
The idea was to increase the number of Kentucky students going to college, said Shaughnessy, D-Louisville. It also was aimed at persuading the best and brightest to stay at home, since the money, by and large, can be used only at an institution in Kentucky.
On the latter point, ''we've got a lot of work to do,'' Shaughnessy said, noting that last year Shelby County High had five graduates who qualified for the $2,500-a-year maximum award by virtue of 4.0 grade averages and ACT scores of at least 28. Only one of the five stayed in Kentucky -- at Centre College in Danville. The others chose Harvard, Oberlin, Johns Hopkins and William and Mary.
Shaughnessy said another cause for concern is that too few students take the ACT and even fewer do well on it.
According to figures from the Kentucky Higher Education Assistance Authority, about one-third of KEES qualifiers fail to get the separate bonus that is based on ACT score. That would mean they scored below 15 or did not take the test at all.