$500,000 fund will send Sweetwater kids to SDSU

By Jeff Ristine

UNION-TRIBUNE STAFF WRITER

March 11, 2000

Nick Brown, 12, already is thinking about San Diego State University.

"My parents want me to get a higher education," said the Imperial Beach Elementary School student, who hopes to get involved in football or baseball by then. "All my friends say they're going to San Diego State."

Nick has a lot of work ahead of him, but a partnership between the university and the Sweetwater Union High School District announced yesterday is clearing a path to SDSU for Nick and other students in the entering freshman class of 2006.

With a $500,000 scholarship fund from Metabolife Chief Executive Officer Michael Ellis, SDSU is guaranteeing admission to Sweetwater district graduates who meet a series of specified benchmarks, beginning in the seventh grade. If they want to go to SDSU but cannot afford it, the Ellis fund will pay their way.

Kathleen Rodriguez, 12, of Tiffany Elementary School, is not committed to an SDSU education but said the SDSU-Sweetwater compact "makes me feel real relieved."

"I just want to go to a good college," Kathleen said.

Elsa Robles, whose son, Mario, 11, is eligible for the program, also said it is comforting to know that money will not be a problem if Mario chooses SDSU.

"We have three children," Robles said after an announcement at Hilltop Middle School in Chula Vista. "It takes a lot of pressure off. Now I can just concentrate on his studies and meeting the requirements."

Admission is not automatic.

Prospective SDSU freshmen still will need to meet California State University admission requirements, which provide access only to the top third of each year's high school graduates in the state.

If anything, SDSU President Stephen Weber said, the Sweetwater students will need to exceed the performance of others bound for Montezuma Mesa, because they will be required to work toward the as- yet unspecified benchmarks along the way.

But Weber added: "They need to know their work will pay off when they get in (to SDSU). They need to know they can succeed."

The idea of a philanthropist's promising a college education to students while they are still in elementary school goes back nearly 20 years, to a multimillionaire in New York who told a class of 61 Harlem sixth-graders that he would provide a full scholarship for those who stayed in school and studied hard.

And, shortly before leaving the San Diego City Council in 1987, William Jones, now an urban redeveloper, started a similar scholarship fund for a sixth-grade class at Kennedy Elementary School.

The difference here: While the Ellis Foundation scholarship fund is only good for SDSU, it applies to students from an entire district.

"This was an easy choice for my foundation," said Ellis, who was approached to spearhead the scholarships in part because he is a graduate of Buena Vista High School, which is in the district. "The quality of a nation is actually determined by how we preserve and make a future for ourselves and our children."

For now, the SDSU-Sweetwater compact applies only to next year's seventh-graders, a group of more than 5,400. But Ellis said he hoped that his check would pull in additional contributions from the business sector to keep the scholarships going.

The benchmarks -- to be worked out by teachers, counselors and SDSU officials -- will be tied to regular admission requirements. Incoming freshmen, for example, need to have four years of English and three years of mathematics (among many other required courses) and must take the Scholastic Assessment Test.

Participating students and their parents will sign a "contract" outlining their responsibilities; parents will be expected to support their child's progress.

SDSU will offer tutoring, including summer sessions, and other assistance to the students to work through any obstacles to academic performance and to getting suitable scores on placement examinations during the students' middle and high school years.

"Imagine the incentive," Weber said, "for young people to know that if they meet some clearly stated, rigorous academic objectives they will have preapproved admission to the oldest and largest higher education institution in the San Diego region.

"They will come with the tools needed to succeed and to graduate."

Sweetwater Superintendent Edward Brand called the compact "a dream come true" that will "change the lives of many of our students."

Brand said most parents in the district regard college as "a necessity for the careers and the types of jobs that they wanted their children to have."

In 1999, Weber said, about 28 percent of Sweetwater Union graduates were CSU-eligible, slightly below the state average.

"Our goal . . . is to raise that number significantly, particularly among Latino and African-American students," he said.

Credit: STAFF WRITER

Copyright SAN DIEGO UNION TRIBUNE PUBLISHING COMPANY Mar 11, 2000