A team approach to the cost of college

Jim Gehrz, Star Tribune

St. Paul high school graduates had a little fun while posing for freelance photographer Matt Wash outside the Landmark Center. The students were part of the In Celebration of Education program Thursday to honor 100 seniors who had won local scholarships.

A Rice Park open house honored 100 "beat-the-odds" graduates who won scholarships from five groups.

By JAMES WALSH, Star Tribune

Last update: May 22, 2008 - 11:43 PM

This is the season of graduation open houses, where guests are invited to show up with a check to wish happy graduates success in college and career.

On Thursday, downtown St. Paul was invited to a graduation party over the lunch hour in Rice Park to honor 100 St. Paul and east metro high school graduates who've won scholarships from five organizations. With a jazz band and a choir from St. Paul's High School for Recording Arts performing, and the smell of roasting hot dogs wafting through the air, it's the kind of open house officials say they want to repeat again and again.

"We thought, 'Let's have a party and celebrate these kids and what they've done so far,'" said John Tillotson of the Optimist Club of St. Paul, one of the groups awarding scholarships.

The Optimists Club, St. Paul Area Chamber of Commerce Career Investment, Beat the Odds, the Page Foundation and the Wallin Partners Scholarship Program together are awarding about $500,000 in scholarships to the 100 area graduates, Tillotson said. Five years ago, those five groups gave about $100,000. As the economy seems to worsen and the cost of education continues to soar, Tillotson said, private efforts will become more and more critical to the college possibilities of an increasing number of young people.

"The Number 1 challenge that kids face is financial," Tillotson said, adding that 80 of the scholarship recipients have family incomes of less than $50,000.

That certainly is the case for Tottiana Adams, a spoken-word performer and Optimists scholarship winner. Once homeless and a victim of sexual violence, the 18-year-old High School for Recording Arts student is looking at a future that will include either Augsburg College or St. Paul College. She's getting a $1,500 scholarship, which several schools will match.

"My family could never afford to pay for college," said Adams. "This is so important. I know that no matter what I've been through, I can make it."

Just as important as the money, said Joe Nathan, is giving recognition for a job well done.

"I think it matters to kids that adults pay attention," said Nathan, executive director of the Center for School Change at the University of Minnesota's Humphrey Institute of Public Affairs.

It matters, too, what these young people do with this opportunity, said Meria Carstarphen, superintendent of the St. Paul public schools.

Asking the scholarship winners to turn to face her, she exhorted them to become the next group of leaders. On this day in 1964, she told them, President Lyndon Johnson delivered his Great Society speech at the University of Michigan -- a speech that opened the door to the Voting Rights Act and myriad social programs. With the doors that have opened for the graduates, she said, "We expect you to do the same great things that leaders before you have done."

Maricruz Monreal, who will graduate soon from St. Paul Johnson High School, comes from a family of migrant farm workers from Mexico. Her parents never graduated from high school. A scholarship from Beat the Odds will help her study nutrition at the University of Minnesota in the fall.

"I will be the first one from my family to go to college," she said, beaming. "I'm the youngest, and I'm going to college. It means so much."

Dan Kennedy, Monreal's guidance counselor at Johnson, said she's already shown amazing drive. "She would come in to school on Saturdays -- when we didn't have class -- and work to find scholarships," he said. "She sees [college] as being able to help her family -- and to really survive."

James Walsh • 651-298-1541