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Program Pays Hispanic Men to Stay in School

Pima Community College (Tucson, Arizona) plans to pay Hispanic men to stay in school because their graduation rates are so low.

Under a new program, called Gain, 500 men will be paid $1,500 each for successfully completing classes and utilizing some support services.

Three private foundations are funding the program. Public tax money won’t be used.

The idea is to turn around low retention and graduation rates among low-income Hispanic men, said Lorraine Morales, assistant vice chancellor.

Only 11 percent of Hispanic men who enroll at PCC finish their degree program within three years. The overall graduation rate is 23 percent. Another 8 percent in each group transfer to other Arizona colleges.

MDRC, a New York-based nonprofit research company, is studying similar programs at community colleges in New York, Ohio, New Mexico and California. It invited PCC to participate and brought in two private funders: the Phoenix-based Helios Education Foundation and the Detroit-based Kresge Foundation.

MDRC wants to better understand what helps struggling students persist and graduate. The company will issue a report in 2012 that it hopes will influence how scholarships are designed in the future.

Students who volunteer for the Gain program will get $150 when they enroll in classes. They’ll get another $150 mid-semester if they’ve stayed in school and used some support services, such as program orientations, tutoring, career counseling or time management and financial literacy workshops.

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