Consultant to study scholarship plan

March 12, 2008 at 12:08a.m.

A grant from the Wean Foundation will pay for the study.

YOUNGSTOWN — The city school board has hired a consultant to determine the feasibility of a plan to create a scholarship program for city schoolchildren who attend Youngstown State University.

The board approved a contract Tuesday with Hodge Cramer and Associates Inc. of Dublin, Ohio, a national philanthropic consulting company, to determine if the Youngstown Promise will work. The cost will be covered with grant funds.

The plan is to model the scholarship program after the Kalamazoo Promise in Michigan, which has proved to be beneficial to public education partnerships with higher education by providing college scholarships for Kalamazoo high school graduates to attend any state college or university in Michigan.

The Youngstown Promise would provide scholarships for city school graduates to attend Youngstown State University.

Board member Anthony Catale asked if the study would look at colleges in addition to YSU.

Shelley Murray, board president, said YSU was involved in the initial discussions last fall on the Youngstown Promise and all parties involved at the time felt that linking the program solely to YSU seemed appropriate.

The school district already has a partnership with YSU, she said, referring to Youngstown Early College, a city high school operating on the university campus. Qualified students in that program get to take college courses in addition to their high school work.

“It seemed like a natural fit,” Murray added.

If the program does prove to work, Catale said he would like to see it eventually expanded to include other Ohio colleges and universities.

The school district set up a planning committee of civic, business and educational leaders to look at the concept and is now ready for an outside agency to determine if it is feasible.

Hodge Cramer will do the study for $18,000, with the tab picked up through a $20,000 grant from the Raymond J. Wean Foundation.

Dr. Wendy Webb, school superintendent, has said the program will be funded from private sources, not tax dollars. No cost estimates have been made at this point.

That’s something Hodge Cramer is expected to study.

The company’s proposal said it will conduct a series of perhaps 30 interviews with a select group of prospective major donors, community leaders, government representatives, foundation representatives, the YSU Foundation, city school officials and alumni as part of its information-gathering effort.

The study will determine realistic fund-raising goals, principal funding sources, key donor prospects, an implementation time frame and more. It will take 12 to 15 weeks to complete.

gwin@vindy.com