The University of Arkansas at Fayetteville plans to establish a program that initially will involve Pine Bluff-area students and help them become better prepared for college.
The program -- which the university calls Early Access Academy -- will be established with $75,000 from the Simmons First Foundation in Pine Bluff. Junior high and high school students will get exposure to college opportunities. The ultimate goal, UA said in its announcement about the initiative, is to create a college pipeline program that would help prepare them as future university students.
The prospective students will spend time on the UA campus in Fayetteville, UA said.
A pilot summer program will begin with a 50-student group of seventh- and eighth-graders from Pine Bluff-area junior high schools, UA said. The university will track their progress for three years.
The prospective university students will be advised and mentored by officials who work in the area of preparing people for college, as well as by current college students who are the first in their families to attend college and who come from similar low-income, minority-group backgrounds as the Pine Bluff-area students.
About 48 percent of the high school graduates from Jefferson County public schools who entered a public community college or university in the fall 2014 semester had to take some kind of remedial course, according to a state Department of Higher Education report.
"For some time, I have been impressed with what the University of Arkansas has done through its College Access Program," Tommy May, a Pine Bluff resident who is chairman and chief executive officer of the Simmons First Foundation, said in a statement. "I believe the program is very successful, regardless of the student's decision to continue their education. However, we believe there is an even greater opportunity by providing a modified program earlier, for grades seven through nine."
State Desk on 06/20/2015