BusinessTN

Many a commencement ceremony was held across the state in May, conferring degrees from high school diplomas to doctorates. While many of Tennessee's best and brightest move on to bigger horizons, there is a specific market, particularly underserved high school students, whose crowning achievement in their academic career actually signals the end with the celebratory mortarboard toss.

It was the desire to help those fall-through-the-cracks students that inspired Knox County mayor Mike Ragsdale to launch a new financial assistance program called KnoxAchieves in October 2008.

The brainchild of Ragsdale and further supported by City of Knoxville Mayor Bill Haslam, KnoxAchieves is a program that affords every public county high school graduating senior, regardless of grade point average or American College Test (ACT) scores, the opportunity--meaning, the financial wherewithal--to continue his or her education at a regional, participating community college while waiting for federal assistance to kick in.

Free money, it seems, for budding young adults who may have squeaked by with the minimum requirements for high school graduation. But, Ragsdale doesn't see these kids as a lost cause but rather an invaluable future workforce--and one that is most likely to stay close to home--who just need a chance.

"In many cases, young folks have great promise but lack the encouragement to achieve their full potential," Ragsdale says. "KnoxAchieves reaches out to these students so they can contribute to our region's economic vitality while bettering their quality of life."

Though every graduating high school senior in Knox County may apply for a KnoxAchieves grant--a last-dollar scholarship of up to $2,000 anually--there are some catches. Each student must do his or her part--taking the ACT, applying for the Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FASFA) and enrolling in one of the approved community colleges: Pellissippi State Technical Community College, Roane State Community College or Walters State Community College.

He or she must also maintain a minimum 2.0 GPA while attending college.

Other financial assistance programs do exist to assist prospective college students with limited, or no, funds, such as the much-touted Tennessee Education Lottery that has raised more than $1.4 billion for education since 2004. However, those who Ragsdale is hoping to reach fly right under the academic radar, having just under the 3.0 GPA or ACT score of 21.

"A teacher once told me that the desire in a student's heart is a greater indicator of success than an ACT score or GPA. This really hit home with me," says Ragsdale, who as a graduate of Cleveland High School in Cleveland, Tenn., was the first in his family to attend college, earned the highest student distinction of Torchbearer at UT-Knoxville, obtained his master's in education at Auburn University and went back to UT for an education doctorate.

Of the 500 Knox County high school seniors who were encouraged to apply for KnoxAchieves to enter college this fall, an unprecedented 498 students completed and returned the application.
It's more than money, however, that many of these kids need.

As with protecting any investment, KnoxAchieves added a mentoring component as an oversight, of sorts, to help insure the greatest returnÑa student earning his or her post-secondary degree.

Each program-approved student will be paired with a local business professional interested in seeing the student through every phase of the inaugural college experience, advising and befriending him or her right through the next commencement, and, hopefully, beyond. So far, KnoxAchieves has recruited 175 unpaid, volunteer mentors.

And, as a way to mold these learners into lifelong compassionate citizens, KnoxAchieves students are required to complete at least 10 hours of community service for each semester he or she is receiving funds.

That sounds all well and good, but where is the money coming from?

The answer: aggressive fundraising from the private sector. But with so many holding tightly to their purse strings in these trying economic times, asking for handouts to support a new, untested initiative could present an uphill battle.

That is, unless Randy Boyd is making the calls.

Boyd is the get-it-done, energetic CEO of Knoxville-based Radio Systems Corp., maker of pet-friendly technology products and a founding KnoxAchieves board member, who within about a week raised $1.7 million of private contributions and pledges.

That's enough to foot the bill for the first wave of grant recipients poised to enter college this fall. Boyd and his fellow KnoxAchieves board members--Ragsdale, Haslam, Rich Ray and Tim Williams, co-founders of 21st Century Mortgage, and Chris Woodhull, city councilman and executive director of inner city Christian ministry TRIBE ONE--had not yet contacted Knoxville's philanthropic big guns.

KnoxAchieves is 100% supported by business and community donations, and all of the proceeds go toward tuition fees.

Other Tennessee counties have existing last dollar scholarship models for first time, full-time college students, such as Shelby County's Scholarships for Technical and Educational Programs (STEP), championed by county mayor A C Wharton Jr., which does include a mentor/student relationship component; and the Ayers Foundation Scholars program in Decatur County, established in 1999, that has reportedly seen post-secondary attendance jump from less than 33% to 88% in the first three years. (Sevier and Sullivan counties have similar programs, as well.)

So fresh is this initiative in Knox County that no numbers have been tallied, no success stories written; yet the originators of KnoxAchieves hope the mere idea of a mentor-based, last dollar grant program will spread rapidly into neighboring counties such as Anderson, Blount and Roane.

The hope is that KnoxAchieves will provide "a template that can be modified along the way," Boyd says.

Two Vanderbilt University student financial aid experts--Douglas Christiansen, assistant provost for enrollment and dean of admissions, and Will Doyle, assistant professor of higher education--concur that initiatives like KnoxAchieves are good for the community as a whole and commend the effort.

Yet laying the responsibility of sustaining such programs solely on the goodness of the hearts of the community makes for a half-baked solution in the long run.

"We can't solve this problem just through philanthropy," Doyle says. "It's not just a matter of getting more money. The colleges have a responsibility to keep their [tuition] costs down, as well."

As momentum continues to build for KnoxAchieves, the private sector should be able to gauge the return on its investment in as little as two-to-four years.