The Schuler Education Foundation has awarded a first round of challenge grants totaling $170 million to five colleges in support of financial aid for low-income and/or undocumented students.

The Schuler Access Initiative, biotech entrepreneur Jack Schuler's ten-year, $500 million effort to boost enrollment among undocumented and low-income students at up to twenty liberal arts colleges, has committed $50 million to Bates College in Lewiston, Maine; $50 million to Carleton College in Northfield, Minnesota; $25 million to Kenyon College in Gambier, Ohio; $25 million to Tufts University in Massachusetts; and $20 million to Union College in Schenectady, New York. Each institution will be required to match the grant 1:1 over the next five years to provide permanent endowment funds for expanded financial aid for students who are eligible for Pell Grants, low income, and undocumented or have DACA status.

Bates College president Clayton Spencer said the infusion of endowed funds for financial aid will enable the college to increase the number of students who are Pell eligible, low income, or undocumented by 50 percent over the next decade. Once Carleton College raises $50 million for the match, it expects to be able to support more than fifty additional low-income students a year in perpetuity. Kenyon College also expects the endowed scholarships will support fifty additional students a year, while Union College will provide support for nine additional Pell Grant-eligible students in each of the first two years and ten in the following years of the ten-year initiative.

In selecting the partner colleges, the foundation looked "for institutions that we felt were leaders in educating and supporting students who are Pell eligible or undocumented," said Schuler Education Foundation executive director Jason Patenaude. "It didn't make a lot of sense to dramatically increase the number of students if we didn't think the institutions could support them successfully to graduation."

"We want to give liberal arts colleges and universities the resources they need to bring greater opportunities to students who have such tremendous promise," said Schuler. Students with undocumented status are brimming with "motivation, aspiration, optimism. We should be investing in this population."

(Photo credit: Schuler Education Foundation)