Paul Bass Photo
New Haven Promise CEO Patricia Melton at WNHH FM.
The horizon has broadened for New Haven public-school “scholars.”
So said Patricia Melton, CEO of New Haven Promise, the 12-year-old scholarship and mentoring program that guarantees some 750 qualifying students each year a free ride to higher education in 18 Connecticut-based colleges and universities.
Yale has teamed up with Promise to expand that promise out of state: Yale has created a fellowship to pay up to $20,000 in annual tuition and fees at four Southern-based Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs).
The HBCUs covered under the recently announced program, called the Pennington Fellowship, include Hampton University, Morehouse College, Morgan State University, and Spelman College. Yale created it as part of its broader effort to confront the institution’s historic racial legacy. (Read more about that and about the details of the program here.)
Yale has enlisted New Haven Promise to administer the program. Students will need to qualify as Promise “scholars” — New Haveners maintaining a B average at New Haven public schools and performing 40 hours of community service — to participate. (The Pennington Fellowship remains technically separate from New Haven Promise scholarships.)
Melton noted in an interview that the Pennington Fellowship opens new opportunities for New Haven students in two ways: It enables more to look beyond the state’s borders for college. And it specifically makes HBCUs more of an option for students who otherwise might not be able to afford the tuition.
That last observation grows out of a fact of life for some students: An Ivy League school can cost less than an HBCU. Because a $41 billion-endowed university like Yale has more money for scholarships.
Melton, a member of the Class of 1983, came across that fact when she enrolled at Yale and met her freshman counselor, David Thomas.
“He went to Yale because the cost of attending Morehouse, which was his number-one choice, was exorbitant. Yale gave him more financial aid,” Melton said during an appearance Thursday on WNHH FM’s “Dateline New Haven” program.
“That’s probably still the case: The cost of college, regardless of institution, for just about every family is a challenge. That’s a debt you’re going to carry to your grave,” since bankruptcy court does not allow for the discharging of student-loan debt.
David Thomas today serves as president of Morehouse, one of the four HBCUs in the first wave of the Pennington Fellowship program. (Yale stated that it plans to expand the number of HBCUs covered.)
“The Pennington Fellowship really brings this choice at least back on the table as a choice that is viable without mortgaging your future earning power,” Melton said. Close to 500 Promise applicants have listed an HBCU as a top college choice over the past decade. The majority of New Haven Promise scholars are Black or Latino, come from families making under $60,000 a year (more than a third under $30,000), and are the first generation of their families to attend college.
Click on the video above to watch the full conversation with CEO Patricia Melton, which also covers recent developments and future plans at New Haven Promise, on WNHH FM’s “Dateline New Haven.”
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