Milwaukee Public Schools received a $23 million grant from the federal government to help nearly 30,000 students attend college over the next seven years.
The district and local partners will provide matching funds to direct a total of $46 million into the initiative.
The program, Gaining Early Awareness and Readiness for Undergraduate Programs, or GEAR UP, will serve 4,000 MPS students in fourth through seventh grades annually and follow them through their first year of postsecondary education.
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“These efforts are grounded in one of our three pillars of work at the district, and that is making sure that you are getting everything that you need to be successful right here at Carson,” Superintendent Brenda Cassellius said, speaking to students at Carson Academy of Science school on Milwaukee’s north side.
Cassellius said GEAR UP money will support tutoring and mentoring programs and family engagement activities to increase college awareness.
There will also be professional development for teachers and expanded partnerships with Wisconsin universities, Cassellius said.
MPS’s contribution to the matching grant will be about $900,000 of in-kind salaries devoted to the program and $1 million in building space. No new money will be spent.
GEAR UP was started in 1998 by former President Bill Clinton to increase the number of low-income students who are prepared to enter and succeed in postsecondary education.
MPS received a $14 million GEAR UP grant in 2011 that expired in 2018.
Ericca Pollack, college access coordinator for MPS, said the grant established many of the programs still in existence today, including the district’s College and Career Center.
More than 12,000 students participated in the first GEAR UP grant, including Mario Hamilton, who was a seventh grader in 2011.
At the time, Hamilton was living on the city’s north side. He said he saw how hard it was for a Black man to go to college.
GEAR UP connected Hamilton with a mentor, and he immediately got involved with every pre-college program he could find.
When Hamilton graduated from Marshall High School in 2018, he went to Marquette University. He’s now pursuing his Master’s Degree in counseling at the university.
Hamilton said MPS getting another GEAR UP grant is great news.
“Oh my goodness, it’s exactly what they need,” Hamilton said. “I do recruitment around the city and when I go into these schools, I think something is missing. It’s this, the college access programs. And here it is now.”
In September, the Trump administration canceled nine GEAR UP grants that funded college mentors at more than 200 public schools in the United States. At the time, U.S. Department of Education Deputy Press Director Ellen Keast said the grants “use overt race preferences or perpetuate divisive concepts and stereotypes.”
“The non-continued grant funds are not being cut; they are being re-invested immediately into high quality programs that better serve aspiring and current college students,” Keast said in a statement at that time.
Pollack said MPS’s grant was approved by the Department of Education, and the district will follow what was written and approved by the administration.
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