Mesa work-study plan offers way to graduate
Joint program helps low-income college students
‘‘ We are here to make systemic changes over the long term that will help more students graduate from college.”
NAOMI STORY, Mesa Counts on College representative
Delmarion Williams has spent most of his life bouncing among foster homes and relatives who could care for him for only short periods of time. College was a subject his caregivers never found time to discuss.
“I had been thinking about college, but it’s all very new to me,” said Williams, who is 18 and a recent graduate of Sun Valley High School, an east Mesa charter school.
So when a high-school counselor told him about a new work-study program that will allow him to earn a living for six months as a Mesa parks construction worker and also pay some of his tuition at Mesa Community College, Williams jumped at the opportunity.
The program, called the Mesa Urban Corps, was created by Mesa Counts on College, an effort by the city of Mesa, Mesa Public Schools and Me- sa Community College to help low-income students ages 16 to 26 attend and graduate from college.
Mesa Counts on College aims to double the number of low-income Mesa students who complete college.
The program got its start in September 2010 with a $3 million grant from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, which also has a goal of increasing the college graduate rate of low-income students.
Williams and five other young people who recently began the Urban Corps program are exactly the type of students Mesa Counts aims to help, said Amy Trethaway, a Mesa Counts representative.
“They are Mesa residents who have not been career-focused. Many have never even thought about college,” she said.
The six Urban Corps workers will do parks projects — they recently started building two disc-golf courses at Red Mountain Park in east Mesa — four days a week and take classes at Mesa Community College one day a week through July 5. Those who
stick with the program until the end will receive $2,775, enough for another semester at Mesa Community College. Trethaway said the program does not require participants to spend their bonus checks on college tuition, but officials hope that they will.
Mesa Counts representatives spent much of the first two years of the program working on projects that were largely invisible to the public, such as creating a shared student-data system and aligning English Department curricula so there are fewer gaps between what students learn in Mesa high schools and at Mesa Community College.
Naomi Story, a Mesa Counts representative based at Mesa Community College, acknowledges that many people still do not understand the purpose of the Gates Foundation grant.
“I still get calls from people who say, ‘My kid needs a scholarship to college,’ ” she said. “But that only serves one person. We are here to make systemic changes over the long term that will help more students graduate from college.”
When Mesa Counts launched, the graduation rate for low-income college students in Mesa was about 8 percent. The number has not changed, but that does not trouble Shouan Pan, president of Mesa Community College. Most involved with Mesa Counts say it could take as long as 10 years to see the college graduation rate change substantially.
Now, in year three of the grant, Mesa Counts has some concrete programs that aim to help students get to college and stay there until they have a diploma or certificate that will lead to a job.
Another program Mesa Counts has developed is a summer program for high-school juniors called Learn to Earn. The 50 students who are chosen to participate will earn $1,500 while they learn workplace skills, visit area colleges and spend four weeks at Arizona Medical Center, Mountain Vista Medical Center or Cardon Children’s Medical Center learning about health careers.
Urban Corps members Williams and Josie Esparza, 20, said they don’t mind the construction labor the work-study requires. But both ultimately would like to earn degrees that allow them to be teachers.
“The construction experience will help me get a job to work my way through college. But I am interested in going into early-childhood education, maybe to work with kids who have autism,” Williams said.
Esparza said, “The construction work is definitely a steppingstone for me. I am going to be a teacher.”
The Gates grant will end in June, but Mesa Counts on College leaders say they do not intend to end the program. They just spent part of their $35,000 annual supply budget on banners to promote the effort along Main Street in downtown Mesa.
Leaders are expected to spend the next two months searching for new partners and funding sources.
“Regardless of external funding availability, Mesa Public Schools understands the importance of helping prepare our students for the rigors of postsecondary learning,” said Superintendent Michael Cowan.