Millie Jimenez, an honors graduate of G.W. Fowler High School, will attend SUNY Albany in the fall as one of the first participants of the Say Yes to Education Syracuse Program.
Since she was a little girl, Millie Jimenez knew she wanted to be the first person in her large, extended family to graduate from college. With supportive parents who worked minimum wage jobs, She knew that she had their encouragement but that they wouldn’t be able to help much with tuition. Facing what was sure to be an enormous debt, Millie had to weigh her options. “I thought I would have to takea year off and work full-time to save up for tuition,” she said. “Then the Say Yes program was announced and I was so relieved!”
In 2008, Syracuse University and the Syracuse City School District announced that Say Yes to Education, Inc. was establishing a program in Syracuse. Say Yes is a national not-for-profit organization committed to increasing high school graduation rates for our nation’s inner-city youth. The cornerstone of the Say Yes program is the commitment of college scholarships for every eligible student graduating from the Syracuse City School District.
Twenty-three private institutions partnered to form the Higher Education Compact to provide academically-prepared youth with education options at no or very low cost. The Community Foundation stepped in to respond with a key missing element in the program—tuition scholarships to graduates who would like to attend New York State colleges and universities (SUNY/CUNY).
We established the Say Yes to Education Fund and pledged to match private gifts to the fund, up to $1,000,000 until 2013. This is the largest grant in our 82-year history.
Millie, who graduated eighth in her class of 160 at G.W. Fowler High School in May, always excelled in school. She credits her success to her family, who encouraged her to be anything she wanted to be. Her dreams of college are now much more attainable thanks to Say Yes. She will be saving more than $20,000 a year, only paying for her room and board when she enters SUNY Albany in the fall. She plans to study business, a subject that has always interested her. “I really want to keep learning,” she said. “I can’t wait to get started and see what is ahead for me.”