LITTLE ROCK — Community leaders in Sparkman have raised nearly double the amount originally planned for the town’s new college-scholarship program.
Officials announced Friday that they have raised$42,088.14 in donations for the Sparkman Promise, which will help pay college tuition for the town’s high school graduates.
Last month, community leaders said it could establish the program with $27,000, enough to start the next three high school graduating classes.
But the money kept rolling in.
“We are astonished by the generosity we have received, and we have just begun,” said Glenda Seale Bordelon, one of the organizers, before an event Friday night officially announcing the program.
This year’s graduating class at Sparkman High School has 14 students.
Across the nation, there are more than 20 such programs that pay all or part of local high school graduates’ college tuition and fees, according to the W.E. Upjohn Institute, an economic research institute in Michigan that keeps track of the programs.
Arkansas has three: El Dorado, Arkadelphia and Sparkman.
There is a somewhat similar program benefiting Phillips County high school graduates, who can get Great River Promise scholarships to help pay their tabs at Phillips Community College of the University of Arkansas.
What sets the Sparkman Promise apart from similar scholarship programs, including the ones in Arkadelphia and El Dorado, is that the startup money comes from funds donated by local businesses and residents.
The El Dorado Promise, which began in 2007, is funded by Murphy Oil Corp., and the Arkadelphia Promise, announced in November, is funded by the Ross Foundation and Southern Bancorp.
In Sparkman, with a population of less than 500, part of the impetus for the program came from residents looking to do something to save their schools from dwindling enrollment and potential closure by promising to pay for college for their high school graduates.
“In terms of a community’s future, it’s really left to them to decide as a community to have leaders step up and say we want our community to grow, we want our community to stay, we want a community for our kids and grandkids to come back to,” said Shane Broadway, interim director of the state Department of Higher Education.
“And that’s really where the effort of Sparkman is something to be applauded. They decided that without some kind of effort, the community they all love would go away.”
The amount of scholarship money students are eligible to receive depends on when they entered the Sparkman school system and whether they receive Arkansas Challenge lottery-funded scholarships or federal Pell grants.
To be eligible, a student must have at least a 2.5 grade point average or a score of at least 19 on the ACT college entrance exam.
Only students at the Sparkman campus of the Harmony Grove School District are eligible. On average, about 35 percent of Sparkman High School graduates have gone on to college.
Arkansas, Pages 11 on 03/12/2011