Tulsa Achieves Exceeds Its Inaugural Goals: Applicants Top 1,600, Including Students From 64 Public and Private Schools in Tulsa County, TCC Reports.

By April Marciszewski, Tulsa World, Okla.

May 10–One-fourth of Union High School’s graduating class and about one-fifth of Broken Arrow High School seniors signed up for the local scholarship that will make their two-year college degree nearly free.

Applications for Tulsa Community College’s new Tulsa Achieves scholarship totaled 1,620, exceeding the college’s expectation of about 1,500 students.

The applicants are from 64 public and private schools, and 44 students are home-schooled.

“We’re just thrilled — absolutely thrilled,” said Lauren Brookey, TCC’s vice president for external affairs.

If all of those students end up qualifying for the scholarship by making at least a 2.0 grade-point average upon graduation, and if they all enroll at TCC this fall, the college will have 67 percent more freshmen than last fall coming directly from high school.

Brookey credited the work of high schools, which invited TCC recruiters to come, and high school counselors, who sought out students and encouraged them to apply.

Trevor Lane, TCC’s manager of student recruitment, said the scholarship

lets recruiters tell students they have no excuse for not going to college.

Visits to high schools also allowed recruiters to inform younger students about taking TCC classes during high school, and enrollment in the Attend College Early program already is 51 percent higher last fall, Lane said.

This year’s high school graduating class is the first to be eligible for Tulsa Achieves. Students must have lived in Tulsa County for at least one year.

TCC President Tom McKeon estimated in March that the scholarship would cost TCC a little more than $1 million for the 2007-08 school year, and Brookey said after Wednesday’s board of regents meeting that TCC is comfortable with its ability to fund the scholarship for all 1,620 students.

Based on preliminary conversations with other local colleges, she said, TCC does not think it is pulling students away from other colleges but rather is widening the pool of students who are going to college.

The applicants’ average ACT score is 19.8, and the group includes one student who made a perfect score on the reading section of the ACT and another who made an overall ACT score of 32 out of 36.

When Tulsa Achieves was announced, so was a textbook trust that will pay for books for needy students.

The Linda Mitchell Price Charitable Foundation kicked off the campaign with a $200,000 donation, and the fund now is up to $336,000, Brookey said.

The college also has requested through U.S. Rep. Dan Boren’s office a federal earmark of $600,000 for the textbook trust. Tulsa Achieves students will apply for textbook money when they enroll in classes.

TCC seeks land: Regents voted Wednesday to allow TCC to condemn land near the Northeast Campus if necessary.

The college is trying to buy about 40 acres along Apache Street and adjacent to its campus for the city’s fire training center. It has purchased about 15 acres, Brookey and Regent Ron Looney said.

TCC has been unable to find one property owner; another property owner wants to sell but cannot find the co-owners; and another owner “hasn’t been receptive to a reasonable offer” based on fair market value, Looney said.

TCC has never condemned land and hopes to avoid doing so, he said.

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Web site: www.tulsacc.edu/tulsaachieves

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April Marciszewski 581-8475 april.marciszewski@tulsaworld.com

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Top 10 schools whose students signed up for Tulsa Achieves

School Number of students who signed up 1. Union High School 233 2. Broken ArrowHigh School 192 3. Jenks High School 114 4. Charles Page High School 100 5. Rogers High School 93 6. Bixby High School 73 7. Owasso High School 72 8. Booker T. Washington High School 68 9. Hale High School 66 10. Edison Preparatory School 61

Source: TCC

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Copyright (c) 2007, Tulsa World, Okla.

Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune Information Services.

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