Collegebound

CollegeBound, a four-year-old, non-profit organization that assists city high school graduates attend college, is running low on money. This is a real setback; the program has produced a remarkable track record in a short period of time.Mayor Kurt L. Schmoke, the Greater Baltimore Committee and Baltimoreans United In Leadership Development created CollegeBound in 1988. Its mission was to increase the number of city students attending college by removing some of the financial impediments. In its short history, it has provided assistance to nearly 1,600 city students.

Baseball Name High school College Brandan Casas Gilman Maryland Austin Clark Archbishop Spalding La Salle Jamal Clarke Archbishop Spalding St. John's Chad Diehl Westminster Mount St. Mary's Michael Gillespie Boys' Latin Delaware Tyler Henderson Glenelg Country Limestone College ...

CollegeBound has gotten itself into a unusual bind. The four-year-old organization, which helps graduates of Baltimore City public high schools attend college, has been so successful that the demand for its financial assistance has outstripped its meager resources.The program had budgeted $75,000 to cover grants for the coming school year. But about two dozen extra students have qualified. If these inner-city students are to attend classes this fall, they need some immediate help. CollegeBound is hoping the community will contribute the additional $75,000 so these students can enroll in college.

Bright and motivated college-bound immigrants will do Maryland proud ("A flawed compromise," March 8). These young people came here as children, are fully assimilated into American culture and want to be contributing members. We are lucky to have them working for our future. The Central Americans come from countries torn apart by wars paid for by the United States. Paltry aid for rebuilding is nothing in comparison to what we spent to damage Nicaragua, Honduras and Guatemala. These countries are still recovering from the murder and destruction we rained on them.

The Baltimore Museum of Industry was transformed into a sports mecca at the "Mid-Summer Sports Fest" to raise more than $35,000 for two scholarship organizations, CollegeBound Foundation and Joe Sandusky Fund. More than 600 guests were greeted by party co-hosts WBAL-TV sports director Gerry Sandusky and Baltimore Raven Jamie Sharper. An array of games awaited: a batting cage, basketball hoops, putting greens, a makeshift climbing "mountain," pool table, pingpong, tennis, even fencing. If that wasn't enough, you could listen in on the sports radio show being broadcast live from the site.

Between Baltimore's public high schools and four-year college stands a row of hurdles.The difference between the students who leap successfully and those who do not is not brainpower, say many graduates and a new national study of college-aid programs.The difference is a powerful combination of preparation, faith and charity -- coming from outside Baltimore's school system rather than from within."My ambitions were to be a nurse or a teacher, but I really never thought of going to college," says Jennifer Scott, 18, who graduated in 1993 on the honor roll at Patterson High School.

If you've ever faced sending a child to college, you know that the hardest part isn't always coming up with the obligatory king's ransom required for admission these days. Long before the first bill arrives, parents and prospective students face a procedural nightmare that can drag on for years.It ranges from the careful monitoring of a child's high school curriculum, to applying for and getting to the PSAT and SAT tests on time, to researching the hundreds of grants available, to attending college fairs.

A buzz of excitement filled the mezzanine of the Sheraton Inner Harbor Hotel. Scores of college-bound Baltimore high school graduates were gathered there with their families and supporters for CollegeBound Foundation's 19th Annual Scholars' Luncheon, including Mischa Minor, 2007 Scholar of the Year. As they waited for the ballroom doors to open for the luncheon, giggling groups of teenagers compared notes on where they had gone to school and which colleges they'd be attending, thanks to their CollegeBound scholarships.

The CollegeBound Foundation, which this year will give grants to some 250 college students from Baltimore City, has begun receiving $325,000 pledged by the Ford Foundation over the next three years to support its operations.The money is part of an $892,000 grant from Ford to the Baltimore Community Foundation to evaluate programs helping low-income high school students go to college. Some of that money is going to CollegeBound through the Baltimore Community Foundation.The Baltimore Community Foundation was created in 1972 and is funded with money from businesses and philanthropic organizations.

Sometimes, when the going got tough at the University of Delaware, Nathaniel Johnson would dial the toll-free number of CollegeBound, the Baltimore foundation that helps city students go to college.Johnson, 23, who just received his bachelor of arts degree and plans to pursue a master's in electrical engineering at Delaware, was one of the speakers yesterday at a Belvedere Hotel luncheon as CollegeBound saluted its 11th batch of scholars.The graduate of Polytechnic Institute said he got $900 a semester from CollegeBound, but the words of encouragement on the other end of the phone, as well as birthday cards and notes, were as important as the money.

In a few months, Baltimore high school senior Jose De La Cruz will have to make a tough decision: Attend Towson University, a strong academic program that will keep him close to his family, or head to Westminster's McDaniel College, whose computer science program looks promising. But at least he can now worry less about how much that decision will cost him. De La Cruz, who will graduate from Digital Harbor High School in the spring, is one of hundreds of city high- schoolers who have been poked, prodded and inundated with information in an aggressive city campaign to encourage families to take advantage of billions available in financial aid. "I feel relieved because I was nervous about how much money I was going to get, but now I feel like I have nothing to worry about," De La Cruz said this week, after completing the Free Application for Federal Student Aid at his school.

Rising prices and an uncertain job market are taking a toll on families struggling to pay for higher education. The tough economic times are reflected in the number of Maryland students applying for financial aid, which jumped 19 percent overall during the first six months of this year. Affordability is a big issue in the choice of which school to attend, and many students are settling on nearby state colleges and universities where tuition and living costs are lower. At the University of Maryland, Baltimore County, for example, the freshman class is about 100 students larger this year than last; tuition there is less than half that of a comparable private university.

Acquisitions Macfadden & Associates Inc., a Silver Spring-based professional services company, acquired engineering and information support services firm Systems Integration Group of Lanham. SIG will continue to operate as a wholly owned subsidiary. Financial terms were not disclosed. Accounting and consulting firm Clifton Gunderson LLP acquired the Arlington, Va.-based federal practice of UHY LLP. Contracts Hughes Network Systems LLC, with headquarters in Germantown, received $2.6 million in orders from the Defense Information Systems Agency and other participating government agencies to provide digital compressed satellite services for the Government Education and Training Network.

A buzz of excitement filled the mezzanine of the Sheraton Inner Harbor Hotel. Scores of college-bound Baltimore high school graduates were gathered there with their families and supporters for CollegeBound Foundation's 19th Annual Scholars' Luncheon, including Mischa Minor, 2007 Scholar of the Year. As they waited for the ballroom doors to open for the luncheon, giggling groups of teenagers compared notes on where they had gone to school and which colleges they'd be attending, thanks to their CollegeBound scholarships.

To gauge the success of Woodlawn High School's "AVID" program, just read the board at the front of its classroom. Students proudly proclaimed on a "chalk of fame" their memberships in Woodlawn's class of 2006 - and the class of 2010 at the colleges they will attend. These 17 students learned to take organized notes and ask probing questions, and gained the self-assurance to ask them, through the Advancement Via Individual Determination program. Tonight, Baltimore County plans to recognize the achievements of 113 high school seniors from Woodlawn and seven other schools who are the first from the county's program to graduate.

This is a stressful time for college-bound high school seniors. With everything else going on in their lives - daily coursework, extracurricular activities and part-time jobs - many struggle to find the time to complete their college applications. They are not alone. Time also is running out for high school guidance counselors, whose job it is to steer students in the right direction as they finalize the college application process. "I feel a lot more pressure," said Ingrid Morton, a guidance counselor at Atholton High School in Howard County.

Sometimes, when the going got tough at the University of Delaware, Nathaniel Johnson would dial the toll-free number of CollegeBound, the Baltimore foundation that helps city students go to college.Johnson, 23, who just got his bachelor of arts degree and is going to pursue a master's in electrical engineering at Delaware, was one of the speakers yesterday at a Belvedere Hotel luncheon as CollegeBound saluted its 11th batch of scholars.The graduate of Polytechnic Institute said he got $900 a semester from CollegeBound, but the words of encouragement on the other end of the phone as well as the birthday cards and notes of encouragement were as important as the money.

Baltimore high school students are told they can.Second-graders can, too, and are being told in Columbus, Ohio, to start getting ready.The can-do message is about getting a college education, an accomplishment that many inner-city children may not be able to imagine because of poverty and other factors. Changing that self-defeating perception is the mission of Baltimore's CollegeBound Foundation and similar groups elsewhere.Led by Joyce A. Kroeller, executive director of Baltimore's group, the programs have united at her urging to form a network of 20 groups.

MY FELLOW mothers and I have recently returned from taking our freshmen to their prospective colleges for orientation - otherwise known as the reality check - and we are not reassured. Never have we seen a group of children so blase about being supported in the style to which they have become accustomed while living beyond our reach. College is exactly that: a kind of fully funded semi-adulthood with all of the freedoms and none of the responsibilities. But for some reason, our children do not appear to be excited about the prospect of not having to obey us for free.