Grand Rapids Promise Zone Partnership Announced

A new partnership between the Grand Rapids Promise Zone, Ferris State University, Grand Valley State University and Grand Rapids Community College will provide funding towards a bachelor's degree for eligible GRCC grads. Tom DeJonge, Grand Rapids Promise Zone Chair, joins us with the details. 

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome news when it comes to the price of college.
This is West Michigan's morning news spread, Kaita. I am
Steve Kelly, and we are joined on the liveline the
Grand Rapids Promise Zone chairperson Tom de Young. Tom, thanks
for taking time to do this today.

Speaker 2 (00:18):
Now are you're welcome. I'm happy to be invited.

Speaker 1 (00:20):
What a great addition to what you're already doing. Talk
to us a little bit about the announcement about the
collaboration now with the Promise Zone Authority, Farris State, Grand
Valley and Grand Rapids Community College.

Speaker 2 (00:35):
Yeah, isn't a great announcement. We're very excited as a
board and a community of educational leaders to be able
to announce this earlier this week. The partnership actually began.
The conversations began probably say half a year or maybe
even a year ago, where we looked to fulfill the

(00:57):
original dream that the Promise Zone Board has way back
when it started in twenty eighteen. Initially we had discussed
starting with a four year opportunity, but we knew we
wanted to start small so we could be successful. So
for the past several years we've had our two year
partnership in place with Community College, and students are able

(01:20):
to receive a free community college associate's degree at Grand
Rapids Community College if they attended one of twenty five
qualifying high schools. And now in the last year, we've
been able to work this through with Grand Valley State
University and Fair State Universities too, highly respected universities here

(01:41):
in the Grand Rapids area in the region, and we're
looking forward to getting that kicked off soon.

Speaker 3 (01:47):
Tom, congratulations on the first program you talked about now
and it's fifth year. You've supported a little over two
thousand students so far. Let us know what kind of
the ramifications or restrictions are as far as this next
phase going with that and who it applies to.

Speaker 2 (02:04):
Well. Thanks for asking that the restrictions actually are connected
directly with what they've always been with the community college
promised son, and that starts with students have to have
graduated from one of the twenty five area high schools
that are located within the city of Grand Rapids. Those
high schools are both public and private Christian Catholic for example,

(02:28):
high schools, and if a student has attended those high schools,
then they are eligible to receive the promised soone grant
for their two years at community college. The other restriction
is that they have to, of course remain eligible, and
by eligibility we're talking about not only maintaining particular grade

(02:51):
levels sorry grade GP eight grades, but also they have
to be able to complete their degree within five years
of their high school graduation. This next step now is
interesting in that the colleges and universities have said they
will accept the Grand Rapids Community College credits, and assuming

(03:14):
the students meet the eligibility at each of the two universities,
then those students will be able to complete within that
five year time frame their four year degree at one
of those two institutions, and they will simply be able
to receive the seven thousand dollars from the university along

(03:35):
with what they receive from the Grand Rapids Promise Zone,
which is seven thousand dollars as well, and they will
be able to then attend and very likely, very possibly
actually leave with a four year degree without any college
debt whatsoever.

Speaker 1 (03:50):
U as parents just need to then link the kids
with the information and encourage them to be able to
do it in two years. But that's for another time.

Speaker 2 (04:00):
Long ago.

Speaker 1 (04:00):
That getting community college, UH transfer credits into another four
university was a big deal, let alone somethings as changing
as this. The chairperson for the Grand Rapids Promise Zone,
Tom Deong, great news. Thanks for joining us again today.

Speaker 2 (04:16):
You're welcome very much. Thanks for having me