'Say Yes' More Than A College Scholarship

It's official: Guilford County is the next Say Yes to Education Community. Program leaders and school officials made the announcement Thursday at Ragsdale High School. 

“I'm really proud to announce that nothing could be finer than Guilford County North Carolina,” Say Yes founder George Weiss announced at the pep rally event.

The Say Yes group provides seed money and infrastructure to create a program that will fund financial support for college tuition.

“There're actually three or four types of scholarships that kids will be eligible for,” says Nora Carr with Guilford County schools. “The idea is not to be able to pay the full freight of everything associated with college.  Typically it's focused on bridging that tuition gap at a either a state community college or four year institution."

Several private colleges and universities across the country have also signed on to Say Yes to provide similar scholarships.

But the program doesn't stop there. It will also provide what's called wraparound services, like free tutoring or mobile health clinics. George Weiss with Say Yes says while the program's not yet ready, it's a plan that will help students get an education no matter what issues they face.

“It will provide free legal aid and mental health clinics. If you have a mental health issue, there's no way you are going to be able to achieve academically. That is our goal and we've made pretty good progress in Guilford county on that,” says Weiss.

The Say Yes to Education Campaign began in 1987 as scholarships for a group of sixth graders in Philadelphia if they graduated high school. Since then, the program has expanded to other cities like Buffalo and Syracuse, New York.

Will Keresztes with the Buffalo Public School system says it has had a tremendous impact on the entire community.

“Our student suspensions related to student discipline have gone down and our overall enrollment in the district, which for many years was declining by several hundred each year, began to immediately turn around with the Say Yes program in our district,” says Keresztes. "Our graduation rates have gone up several percentage points in the last few years as well."

He says the biggest challenge is keeping the program running on its own. But Paul Lessard with the High Point Community Foundation say there are already many groups raising money and it will be self-sustaining.

“Their goal in five years from now is they want us to be running this thing and they will move on to their next community,” says Lessard. “This community has risen up and says we value education. We want to take ourselves to the next level and we're willing to pay for it.”

Local leaders needed to raise $28 million in private donations to qualify for the program. They've raised more than $32 million so far. And Thursday HondaJet pledged a hefty $500,000.

For Felicia Andrews of Greensboro, it's like getting a major down payment for her daughter's college education, something that's out of reach for many families in her neighborhood.

“It levels the playing field. When you think about any child that may not have been as successful potentially because of their race, ethnicity or other factors and the odds said you weren't going to be successful, now the sky is the limit for you,” says Andrews.

The first round of scholarships will be available for the class of 2016.

*Follow Keri Brown on Twitter @kerib_news