USA Funds Provides More Than $6.2 Million for College Access and Outreach

INDIANAPOLIS, Nov. 3 /PRNewswire/ -- USA Funds®, the nation's leading education loan guarantor, provided a total of more than $6.2 million to support programs that helped Americans pursue higher education during the fiscal year ending Sept. 30, 2009. USA Funds supported a variety of scholarship and outreach programs designed to help students and families prepare for, pay for and succeed in higher education.

Scholarships. USA Funds Access to Education Scholarships® awarded nearly $3.4 million to help more than 2,280 low- to moderate-income students pay college expenses.

Minority-Focused Scholarship Organizations. USA Funds awarded a total of $500,000 to five national scholarship organizations that promote access to higher education for minority students. USA Funds awarded funds to the American Indian College Fund, the Hispanic Scholarship Fund, the United Negro College Fund, the Thurgood Marshall College Fund and the Asian and Pacific Islander American Scholarship Fund.

College Goal Sunday. USA Funds is a major funder of College Goal Sunday events in Arizona, Florida, Hawaii, Indiana, Kansas, Maryland, Mississippi and Wyoming. College Goal Sunday offers students and parents free assistance in completing the Free Application for Federal Student Aid. In conjunction with College Goal Sunday, USA Funds published and distributed through major newspapers or directly to high schools USA Funds Countdown to College((TM)) supplements, featuring financial aid and college admissions advice.

Early Awareness. During the year, nearly 8,000 middle school students and members of their families benefited from presentations of USA Funds Unlock the Future® and USA Funds Consejos through schools, community agencies and faith-based organizations. USA Funds Unlock the Future is an early awareness program designed to inform students and their families about the value of a postsecondary education. USA Funds Consejos is a similar program geared to Latino students and their families.

Enhancing Academic Success of African-American Males. Based on research that disclosed only 38 percent of African-American men graduate from high school in Indiana, USA Funds has designed an initiative to help increase academic achievement among African-American males in Central Indiana. USA Funds has awarded more than $100,000 to this initiative to support character-building programs for young men, as well as a national conference to promote best practices for enhancing the educational attainment of African-American males.

Learning Communities. USA Funds spearheads a coalition committed to improving postsecondary education access for students in five predominantly low-income communities in Arizona, Florida, Indiana, Mississippi and Washington, D.C. The Learning Communities Coalition supports strategies to enhance high school graduation and college-going rates.

Symposium for Minority-Serving Institutions. For eight consecutive years, USA Funds has supported a symposium that brings together administrators from minority-serving postsecondary institutions to discuss and develop action plans for enhancing student retention and success. More than 160 college administrators participated in the most recent symposium, "Increased Retention in the Midst of Economic Uncertainty."

State Partnerships. USA Funds focuses much of its support on initiatives that enhance higher education access in the eight states -- Arizona, Hawaii, Indiana, Kansas, Maryland, Mississippi, Nevada and Wyoming -- that it serves as designated guarantor under the Federal Family Education Loan Program. These programs included college planning publications, hotlines and Web sites; college tours; college fairs; best practices conferences; admissions test preparation; mentoring programs; student enrollment and retention projects; as well as mobile classrooms that help hospitalized students keep up with their studies.

"Working in partnership with state agencies and other nonprofits, USA Funds supports initiatives that help ensure every deserving student has the opportunity to benefit from postsecondary education," said Robert C. Ballard, senior vice president, program and corporate development.

Headquartered in Indianapolis, USA Funds is a nonprofit corporation that works to enhance postsecondary education preparedness, access and success by providing and supporting financial and other valued services. For more information about USA Funds, visit www.usafunds.org.