High poverty rates and low college enrollment and completion among the population of Loiza, Puerto Rico, have made it near impossible for its youth to achieve economic mobility. With your support, we will help 80 disadvantaged students from the community continue their path towards obtaining a college degree. Your donation will go towards a stipend of $300 each to cover costs tied to their college experiences like transportation, school supplies, tutoring, food, and other essentials.
To forge the way towards degree attainment for the youth of Loiza, we must first dismantle the pervasive racial and economic barriers that limit their potential. In a municipality where half of the population lives in poverty, barriers to academic achievement tend to include the inability to cover the costs tied to postsecondary education. Often, this translates to school desertion, thus resulting and limited educational and employment opportunities.
Through ColaborativoPR's stipend program, participants currently enrolled in a degree-granting course in an institution of higher learning will have the opportunity to cover academic-related costs: from transportation to school materials and services. Through this monetary aid - granted in two disbursements per school year - we offer our students a much-needed respite, as well as the opportunity to focus solely on their education, significantly lowering the risk of desertion.
Financial hardship ranks among the top three reasons our students do not complete postsecondary education. With our direct relief stipend program, we will significantly reduce the risk of our participants abandoning their studies due to economic strife. Attaining a degree will translate into professional opportunities and a higher earning potential, effectively lifting our participants and entire families out of generational cycles of poverty.
