Fidelity announces $250 million Invest in My Education program for up to 50,000 minority students
Fidelity Investments will commit $250 million to a new education initiative to provide scholarships and mentorship programs to up to 50,000 underserved minority students over the next five years.
The Invest in My Education program, announced Tuesday, plans to increase graduation rates and students’ ability to complete their education debt-free.
Pamela Everhart, Fidelity’s head of regional public affairs and community relations, said the program is part of the company’s plans to provide more resources to some minority communities.
“It’s a strategic focus to mitigate some of the systemic and complex barriers that historically underserved students face,” Everhart said. “We believe that all students, regardless of their background, should have the opportunity to access higher education and economic mobility and then begin to find a path to generational wealth.”
Fidelity research found that 21% of black students and 32% of Latinx students graduate college in four years, compared to 45% of white students. The company also found that Black and Hispanic students accumulate, on average, $25,000 more in college debt than their white peers. To address these inequalities, Fidelity works with UNCF, the nation’s largest private provider of scholarships and other educational support to black students, and other nonprofit organizations.
Michael Lomax, UNCF President and CEO, said the full support of Fidelity’s Invest in My Education program will help students thrive. But he said the most exciting part of the program is that it’s targeting students who don’t necessarily get top grades at elite schools because they have to balance their studies with working jobs to pay for it – what he calls “The Mighty Middle”.
“I’m glad to see they’re getting a little respect — they’re the student Rodney Dangerfield,” Lomax said. “They don’t always achieve the best academic results. But they stay in the fight. You do the work. And they get the degree. And they have to work twice as hard because people don’t always focus on them and give them the support.”
He said these students, who attend “the workhorses of American higher education — community colleges, historically black colleges and universities, public universities,” also work hard and can have a huge impact on their communities after they graduate.
“Supporting them along this journey is extremely important,” Lomax said, adding that the mentoring component of the program, which will include both Fidelity staff and other volunteers, is just as important as the financial grants.
Drew Ve’e, a junior at the University of Utah, said the mentorship he has received over the past four months through the Fidelity-sponsored Opportunity Scholars program has been incredibly helpful in his studies as a finance major and as an undergraduate General.
Ve’e, 29, said he transferred to the University of Utah to focus on his studies after leaving Southwestern Oklahoma State University, where he was quarterback on the football team. His mentor eased the transition and gave him a better sense of his decision as well as advice on his CV and finding scholarships.
“It really helped me gain a lot more confidence,” Ve’e said. “And we have similar backgrounds in sports and college so it was really easy to connect with him and I felt a lot more comfortable.”
Ve’e said that between scholarships and campus jobs, he should be able to graduate debt-free, an accomplishment Fidelity prioritizes because college debt isn’t just a financial problem, it’s all of the attendants Worries have also become an emotional problem.
Fidelity’s Invest in My Education program is structured to remove as many barriers as possible to graduating debt-free, Everhart said, including systemic donations to better prepare high school students for further education. But for her, the emphasis on mentoring is personal.
“I’m excited to share my background as a young black girl growing up in a small town where people invested in me and saw something in me that gives me an incentive to keep going,” she said. “I want to make sure these students hear from people who believe in them and take the time to listen to them, to hear their backgrounds.”
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