Mar 4, 2008 4:06 am US/Pacific
Paying For College Bus Tour Stops In Riverside
RIVERSIDE, Calif.
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Only 35% of California low-income minority children attend college.
AP
A Riverside high school Tuesday will be the next stop in a nationwide bus tour intended to raise low-income families' awareness about the various options to secure often quite expensive college funding.
The Sallie Mae Fund's "Paying for College Bus Tour" will roll into Riverside's Ramona High School around 6 p.m. The tour stop includes a complimentary dinner for students and parents, followed by a bilingual workshop focused on college financing, said UC Riverside spokeswoman Kris Lovekin.
UC Riverside and MTV are sponsoring this leg of the 60-city bus tour, which began eight weeks ago in Texas.
This is the fourth year that Sallie Mae -- a nonprofit provider and administrator of student loans -- has undertaken a multi-state tour, which bus tour spokeswoman Mari Canizales said is to "encourage young people in underserved communities to set their sights on college. While knowledge about financial aid is a key predictor of whether a student is likely to attend college, those who have the greatest need for information actually have the least access to it. Nearly three of four young adults indicated (in a recent poll) that they would have been more likely to attend college if they had been aware of financial aid options."
According to Lovekin, only 35 percent of children from low-income minority families in California attend college.
Arnold Hernandez, the tour's national spokesman, will be the featured speaker at the Ramona High event. Born to a migrant family that traveled between Texas and Idaho picking onions and apples, Hernandez was able to work his way through St. Edward's University in Texas and eventually become a television journalist, according to Lovekin.
A $1,000 college scholarship will be awarded Tuesday evening to a student who meets qualifying criteria, she said.
(© 2008 CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. Wire services contributed to this report.)
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