Allan Appel Photo
Mayor Harp with Scott Jones, on the auditorium dais at Hillhouse.
In the era before New Haven Promise,which was founded in 2010, Scott Jones graduated from Hillhouse High School. Make that in 1984. Then he went to University of Connecticut in 1988, and from there to UConn’s Law School, which he finished in 1992.
He’s now a senior assistant attorney with the state public defenders office.
It took him nearly 20 years to repay his college loans.
His three daughters will have it easier, thanks to New Haven Promise.
One of Jones’ daughters is already having much of her tuition paid for through New Haven Promise as sophomore “scholar” at University of Connecticut. Another is at Hillhouse High School, on her way to becoming a Promise scholar as well.
His third daughter is 7 years old. If she follows her siblings’ footsteps, she can benefit from a large new pot of money that has just come to replenish New Haven’s unique scholarship-and-post-college support program.
Jones told that personal story Wednesday during a check-unveiling ceremony, also designed to jazz up kids in the audience to become Promise scholars, in the Hillhouse High auditorium.
New Haven Promise President Patricia Melton at Wednesday’s announcement with Promise Scholar and recent UNH graduate Brittany Palmer.
Marna Borgstrom, the CEO of Yale New Haven Health System/Yale New Haven Hospital, recommitted her institution to the program to the tune of $500,000 a year for four years. Yale New Haven is one of the founding sponsors of New Haven Promise, along with Yale University and the Community Foundation for Greater New Haven,
New Haven Promise President Patricia Melton said the $2 million will allow Promise, as it nears its first decade, “to deepen our programming.”
Promise, whose motto is “To.Through. And Back,” is both a college and a career-launch program for New Haven students. It incentivizes college-going through generous scholarships for in-state tuition, along with internships, networking, and overall support to get kids not only through school but also into careers, preferably in the city’s growing economy.
By the end of this year it will have awarded $17 million to 1,900 New Haven students
Melton said the new funding will enable Promise to bring on eight to 10 college grads as staffers to work alongside teachers and high school counselors with prospective new scholars on college access and financial preparedness.
Over the past ten years, 257 students from Hillhouse have taken advantage of Promise, receiving $2 million in scholarships, which in turn leveraged much other scholarship treasure, Melton said. “We want to do even better in the next ten years.”
Melton said creating a college-going culture — the general aim of Promise — needs to start earlier. The new funding will help significantly in that area. “It will enable us to do it in the middle school,” where Promise’s touch has up to now been relative light, she said.
When the students return home with their sheepskins, “we also hire lots of New Haveners who are Promise graduates,” Borgstron noted.
Acting NHPS Superintendent Ilene Tracey with Borgstrom.
That is the case also with the summer internships, as more and more students are interested in entering healthcare. Borgstrom referenced the hospital’s proposed new neuroscience center at the St. Raphael’s campus, which received important go-aheads the night before the ceremony from a Board of Alders committee. Borgstrom told the students assembled that she hopes to see many of them hired at the new center.
Mayor Toni Harp urged students in the audience, who might be the first in their family to attend college, to take advantage of Promise. The program has no peer in the state or the country, she said, and it helps reduce the wealth gap.